Sometimes
by Shadenight123
Summary: Spoiler for end-game. In an infinite set of multiverses, infinite possibilities await. But is change tied to the person, the world, or the hand of cards dealt by fate? A gamble sends Booker DeWitt back at the beginning of it all...but this time around, he knows, the Lutece Twins aren't there and...sometimes, a second chance is all it takes to make things right.
1. Dealing the Hand

Sometimes, life deals you a hand you just have to play.

Sometimes, life deals you a shitty hand, and you end up a pauper begging off the streets.

Sometimes, life deals you a great hand, and you start your life as the son of a rich lord.

Sometimes, life deals you fun hands, sad hands, horrible hands, good hands...but never —_ever_— does it deal another hand to you.

At least, that was the normal thought process that tied in with the moralistic concept of 'life deals you a hand'.

Rosalind Lutece believed in that, she believed in the fact that life dealt a single hand of cards for every person, until she met her other self.

Then, she undoubtedly believed that life dealt a single hand of cards to multiple hands of multiple selves. The multiple hands were the multiverses. The cards dealt were always different, just like the selves who received them.

Her other self, instead, believed that life dealt a single hand of cards to single hands that however belonged to multiple selves. That meant that taking someone from one multiverse and bringing him into another would deal the other with the same cards as the original one, but things would be altered.

To put it simply, in extremely simple terms that even an ape could understand, her other-self believed that different perspective brought forth changes, no matter the world or the hand dealt.

He tied change to the _person_, rather than to fate or the cards handed over.

So they made a bet, as always.

She said Heads.

He said Tails.

And for once…

She _lost_.

_Booker DeWitt, Columbia, Arrival Station._

He opened his eyes fast, his hands flailing around as he pushed his body upwards. He reached for air and coughed, spluttering out the crystal liquid from his lungs as he breathed in the air, the fresh air, that surrounded him.

He should have been dead.

He should have died.

He should have drowned so that no Zacharias would ever be born.

So _why_ was he there? Why was he where it had all begun?

He moved like a lingering ghost through the sheet of water that filled the rooms of the arrival station. He moved his right hand up to his eye level, to gaze at the A.D. mark on his hand.

Anna.

He felt renewed, as if a current had run through his body in that moment.

His daughter was there, in Columbia. He just had to reach her. He stilled halfway through his next step.

He had fought off all of Columbia's forces the first time around, even when warned against the number Seventy-Seven.

He looked at the mark on his hand once more. He turned to where the closest candle was and gritted his teeth, as he realized what he had to do.

With his left hand, he lifted the burning candle. He closed his eyes, taking deep calming breaths as he thrust the back of his hand against the flame.

He groaned as the fire scorched his skin, burning it and the mark together.

The False Prophet was no more. Zacharias, his other self, would not catch a whiff of him until too late.

Songbird, the C-A-G-E that was the song's tune, he too could be easily dealt with. He could do this. He could save Anna.

He just had to survive another baptism.

The white dressed priest looked at him as he reached for the stairs down, his face smiling as he probably expected some question a pilgrim was supposed to have. This was what made his task easy: everyone was kind and considerate, living a perfect idea of society as long as you were a white man and held yourself with distinction and grace. Never mind the dying and the hungry beneath Fink industries.

"Excuse me, where am I?"

He asked, in the same way as he had done the first time around.

"Heaven, friend. Or as close as we'll see till Judgment day."

He nodded to the fanatic's words, before starting his descent down the stairs. The massive hall, lit up by the flickering candles, displayed all the magnificence of the cathedrals of old. Had he really engineered all of this? Had his other self, Zacharias, managed this only because of a baptism?

Why had he decided to imprison the girl in the first place? What reason was there to steal his daughter? Of course, if he had grown up sterile, then he would have never had Anna. Yet why take his daughter? Why not somebody else's child?

He didn't know the answer to that question, but he wasn't there to ask and receive answers.

He was there to save Anna.

He could hear the music of the chorus, the voices pitching in the Hallelujah as he walked through the corridor of water, towards the circle of pilgrims and the priest, who was delivering his own achievements.

"…it would have been enough!" the man's voice echoed through the hall, and as Booker pushed aside two within the circle, the priest's attention was caught with his arrival.

"Is it someone new? Someone from the Sodom below? Newly come to Columbia to be washed clean, before our Prophet, our Founders, and our Lord?"

"Yes," Booker replied. He eyed the priest and the others in circle, before adding. "I am eager to enter Columbia, the city closest to heaven." He could play sucker up as long as it got him what he wanted. The Priest actually smiled at that, opening his arms wide as he beckoned Booker closer with his right hand offered.

He grabbed at it, and then surprisingly, he wasn't nearly drowned within the water.

No, the priest gently cupped his free hand of the water, and wet his hair.

"I baptize you, in the name of our Prophet, in the name of our Founders, in the name of our Lord!" His hair was once more wetted by more water. "And make him born again, in the bosom of Columbia!"

A chorus of Amen soon followed, and then the priest let him go, gestured for him to move forward in the tunnel behind him. The light at the end of it seemed alluring, and as he walked, surprised by the lack of the risk of drowning, he narrowed his eyes.

He had to find a Tonic soon, the pistol at his belt was barely enough if shit hit the fan, but hopefully he wouldn't have to dash through the rooftops or fight any enemy real soon. Maybe after having freed Anna, maybe then.

He could meet up with Slate too.

Was he already bunkered up by then, or was he free? Was the Vox Populi active? Maybe he could slip a warning about their arm maker, that Chinese guy called…Chen, Chan, Chin or whatever.

The end of the tunnel did bring him to a small waterfall, nothing more than a slight jump that however landed in the pool of the Garden of Eden.

As he stepped down, admiring the statues of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, he trudged through the water upwards, to where the stairs would lead him in the garden first. He walked past the rose bushes and the pilgrims lost in prayers, his eyes already settled on the door of white wood and bronze, and yet he stopped to look at the words written above it.

_The seed of the prophet shall sit on the throne and drown in flame the mountains of man._

In a strange —and twisted— way, the words were right. Anna was Zacharias' daughter as much as his. Only the way it had come across…the way the Lutece twins had…

He opened the door, already expecting the sights of Columbia in all of its glory to blind him. The wind wasn't as strong as one would expect from such a high altitude, yet it still felt slightly cold against his skin. It was the nearness to the sun that probably equilibrated the temperature.

With a soft thud and a clank, the building he was on connected with the passage to the statue in the middle of the park. He followed through, his face nervous as he tried to calm his beating heart. He was alive, he knew what was going to happen…and he would do what he was meant to do.

His hurried walk became a mad dash through the streets, as he deftly avoided a hummingbird and a few of the other Columbia natives who waved at him with their smiles, calling him pilgrim. How hypocrisy could reach such a level was something he didn't know, but for every one of them that smiled, there was a slave with a different skin working his skin off.

He groaned as he was forced to wait for the passage to be freed from the passing chariot. The Lamb of Columbia, his daughter…his blood boiled.

He resumed his run a moment later, hoping against all odds that he wouldn't need to attract the attention of others onto him. It was as he passed by two policemen that he realized that he was missing something extremely important.

The Sky Hanger, the tool he had used to practically travel through kilometers of Sky Line and had saved his skin time and time again…he'd have to kill a cop to get one.

The Tonics too. He could get the first one free at the fair, but for the others…the Fireman was a tough nut to crack. Maybe he could work fine with only the Possession, but he liked having a fiery land mine at the ready when the time came.

Even if Songbird was solved and even if he reached Anna…the city would still remain there.

That wasn't his problem. The world was a den of sinners and selfish people.

The noise of the fair soon drowned away his thoughts. Last time he had lingered around, looking and asking questions. This time he didn't: he headed towards the Possession display and immediately drank one under the gaze of the sultry assistant. He closed his eyes as he felt the familiar pull of the Tonic take effect on his body.

He reopened his eyes and marched through the gate.

In that moment, he realized that the nagging feeling of wrongness in the back of his head was actually right.

Something was different.

No small boy had delivered to him a letter.

No Lutece Twins had appeared from nowhere to ask him the Head or Tails question.

He stopped his hurried walk to glance around. No, they weren't there. They weren't around the corner. They weren't along the street.

Everything seemed the same, but at the same time…

At the same time it _wasn't_, because something was _different_.

The Lutece twins weren't there. That, more than anything else, was what made him afraid.

If that was different…

Then what if Anna wasn't in the monument, waiting to be saved? What would he do if…

No. He had come this far once already.

He'd do it again, and if Anna was a Comstock fanatic, then he would make her see the truth. He didn't care about Columbia or its people…

The only person he cared about was his daughter.

And he would save her, even if he had to tear down the entire city.

**Author's notes**

**Finished playing Bioshock-Infinite and…**

**The Ending made me cringe. **

**So here we go, giving Booker another chance.**

**Because, **_**sometimes**_**, people deserve another chance.**


	2. The Hand Shouldn't Change

Sometimes

Chapter Two.

The guards of Columbia moved in groups of two. Whereas it was for safety measures, or just to have someone else to chat with, was something he didn't know. He passed by a few more couples of lovebirds going to the fair, before gritting his teeth in frustration. He was nearing the park, where the raffle was meant to be, and he had yet to find some random cop to steal the Sky-Hook from.

He wasn't actually going to participate in that raffle of sorts, but if he could get a guardsman alone somewhere…he could deal with two at the same time of course, possessing one and then killing the other. He had a gun after all. He just needed a dark enough alley, and in the park with all the noise that was going on…

Of course!

He carefully grabbed a free soda from a nearby stand and a bag of popcorn, before nicking also two slightly cold beers. Holding them carefully, just like an overexcited pilgrim, he began to walk towards the closest patrolling gents.

"Ehi misters! Ehi!" he loudly exclaimed with a smile, coming close to two guards who were just about to turn the corner. The light of a nearby robotized machinegun passed on him for a split second, before moving back to its usual directions.

The two guardsmen stopped with bright American-approved smiles and nodded.

"What can we do for you on this bright day, citizen of Columbia?" one of the two asked.

He hoped to God they didn't actually talk like that normally —not that he had actually heard many guards talk. Usually he just _killed_ them with a Sky-Hook to the face, burned them to skeletons, possessed them so they committed suicide, and sent crows to feast on their still living bodies or… in general he hadn't actually _talked_ with many of the cops around Columbia at _all_.

"I'm sure patrolling the streets must leave you thirsty, gents. So I thought, why not give these two nice chaps something to drink?" as he said that, he offered the two beers to the guards, who actually smiled at such a display of…what was it anyway? American friendship?

They both grabbed one, and the taller of the two answered back.

"Ah, thank you citizen! You know, we shouldn't actually be drinking on the job, but with this heat? My, I wonder how those Firemen can get through the day with those suits of theirs."

"The wonder of Vigors always surprises me," the other guard replied. "We should be off then, citizen! Thank you for the cold drinks!" And then they both turned around to leave. He gritted his teeth as he realized they actually drank them in public.

He had expected them to go in a nearby alley, not remain on the public road!

He could take this slowly of course. He probably could find the money to buy one, if only he knew where they were sold. The light of the machinegun behind him however was giving him another idea.

So as he looked carefully around the bustling street, the ethereal dancing figure on his left hand giggled as she flew in the air. The machinegun blared and honked, suddenly turning sharp red on the back of the two cops. The burst of the first bullets caught the cops unaware, slamming on the ground already a corpse one of the two. The second barely turned around, trying to move behind some cover, when the second burst shot him dead splattering his head on the ground.

The crowd was screaming by then, running away.

He ran for the closer of the two cops, grabbing him as one would a wounded soldier. This reminded him of Wounded Knee, holding a fellow soldier as they walked away from the battle. He barely made it with the body behind the closest column, when the machine suddenly beeped and returned to normal.

The machine returned to its normal direction, not even caring in the slightest about what she had done. Being a machine that was actually normal. He grabbed the machinegun from the guard, before removing the Sky-Hook from him.

Booker admired its working once more, letting the metallic arms spin to test them. He felt the bile rise to his throat as he remembered some of his stunts with it.

Not giving the corpse another thought, he proceeded along the alley towards the other side of it, emerging in the main street once more. Putting on his best poker face, he entered the screaming crowd showing the fear on his face too. The screams soon went high enough to be hearable.

"The Vox Populi! It has to be them!" one yelled in the crowd.

"It's Daisy! It's Fitzeroy!"

"On this day no less! Monsters! Anarchists! Communists!"

There was no False Prophet to blame.

Booker DeWitt actually smiled as he took the first Sky Line together with a group of scared Columbia citizens.

His smile died the moment he recalled just how fast those things could go.

The railway linked with the Sky-Hook, sending him through a speed that could rival a galloping horse. He held his mouth shut as the air hit his face. Thankfully the multiple straps made it difficult for his hand to slip, but it did not change the fact that he was several thousands of thousands of miles above the ground. To fall would mean death, without any doubt.

He groaned as he swung aside, pushing himself out atop the roof of a nearby building and landing with his usual grace. Glass skylights gave into an office, the glint of a Vigor showing itself to him. He looked around and the frowned. He had followed the crowd, rather than try and bull-strength his way through the thick of the enemy's lines.

So _where_ in all of Columbia had he ended up in? This seemed a far cry from the industries or the Shanktown, or anywhere else similar to that. The Fraternal Order of the Raven was nowhere to be seen, so just where was he going? The monument of the winged angel, the monument that held within it the prison of his daughter, was sort of mocking him, floating there in sight.

He brought his left hand up to cover his gaze and avoid the fastidious light of the sun, and as he looked through the various rooftops and possible sky-lines to take, he came upon a single white and red striped banner.

"_Columbia Residential District_

_Eagle Nest_

_Where Sleep is American-Approved."_

He looked down at the skylight, then at his Sky-Hanger. The Vigor was a possibility, and judging by the crimson colors it held, it would be a devastating addition…at the same time he wasn't being pursued by the police.

He wasn't being battled by Firemen or Handy-men or Mosquitoes. Robotized Lincolns and Washingtons weren't out for his blood. The Vox Populi didn't know him, and Slate was still alive with his men.

He could do this without the same amount of bloodshed as the last time.

Booker ignored the glint of the Vigor, he ignored the idea of breaking through the Sky-Line, and he took a perilous step towards the edge of the rooftop. The Sky-Line seemed to move parallel to a small park, if he jumped, attached himself and then jumped again, he would end up at the beginning of the Residential District. From there he would be in uncharted lands, but he would be moving closer to Monument Island anyway, so there actually _wasn't_ a problem.

"To go or not to go." An extremely familiar voice piped in from behind him.

"That is the question." Another voice, feminine, remarked then.

Booker spun around quickly, somehow his machinegun was in his hands already, and as he narrowed his eyes the Lutece Twins looked back at him with their usual indifference.

"You're late." He remarked.

"Are we?" the man said.

"Aren't you the one early?" the woman said.

"No, it appears we are on time here."

"Maybe you expected us early elsewhere?"

"Maybe he expected us early somewhere else?"

"That's the same Robert," the woman chided.

"Rosalind you're a sore loser." Robert remarked.

"No I am not."

"Yes, you _are_."

"If you two are done," Booker commented tapping with his right foot on the ground. "I'll be going to save my daughter."

"See? He doesn't even want to ask!" Robert pointed at Booker with both his hands outstretched. "It shows I'm right!"

"The hand is different. The end is the same," Rosalind sniffed, crossing her arms across her chest. "There is nothing strange in this, Robert: I am right."

"The hand is the _same_! The end is _different_, end of the story." Robert snapped back.

"Oh really? I'm not seeing how this changes."

"Because it will," Robert muttered, before turning around to give his back to Rosalind.

"If it does, then why can't we see it?" Rosalind retorted.

"Because it changes things."

"Or maybe it does not."

"It does."

"You know what?" Booker finally remarked, "I'll be going." With those words, he jumped from the rooftop, the magnetized Sky-Hook spinning as it pulled his body forward against the Sky-Line and onto it, sending him through the air again. With the acquired speed, he jumped down at the correct moment, landing with a heavy grunt and rolling on the ground to reduce the damage of the fall. He pushed himself up from the ground, the green grass feeling slightly wet with his hands, as he took in the park's surroundings.

There was a lone tree and a few families having a picnic, a couple of children running around with kites or playing with rubber balls. He actually wondered how many of those fell downwards, when the answer came to him. A rubber ball was hurled by a young boy hard, missed by his playmate, and began to sail above him and towards the edge of the park. As soon as it neared the borders, a jet of water that so much reminded him of Undertow.

He shook himself off his stupor, before calmly starting to walk towards the entrance of the residential district. The sign 'no loitering' hung from the corner of the police checkpoint, that seemed not to care at all for who entered and who didn't.

Four guards were simply talking to one another, every now and then doing the same with the closest passerby. One automated turret gun stood guard atop the police's cubicle, holding itself to strike those who would enter violently. He began to walk without a care in the world towards the checkpoint, hoping the poker face used before could last well through the point in the residential district.

The moment the guards' eyes settled on him, they widened their eyes in panic. He looked back with perplexity. What did they have to…

The moment two guards hurried towards him, he did the only thing he could think of. He flung his possession towards the sentry gun, who sounded her horn as it began to attack the police. As the machine's bullets whizzed in the air, his machine gun rattled out a brief hail that struck through the chest the first of the guards, soon followed by the second.

The guards in the checkpoint began to scream, as the automated sentry fired against them. Booker charged through jumping with the Sky-Hook extended as it landed with a spinning crunch on the head of the closest guard. Swapping to his pistol, the next bullet passed through the remaining guard's head, sending the man to tumble on the ground.

Blood was sprayed over his clothes now, as the last gurgles of life from the closest guard came to his ears.

"Wanted…to help."

And in that moment, Booker DeWitt realized that the guards hadn't been alarmed because they had recognized him as a terrorist. They had been alarmed because his clothes had been covered in blood, the blood of the guard he had brought in the alley and had robbed.

They had wanted to help him.

By his own hand…

By his own hand he now had the city of Columbia on his tail.

And the roaring sound of a Fireman in the distance, _that_ clearly didn't bode well to him.

**Author's notes**

**And cliff-hanger it is!**

**I made a mistake and called the Sky-Hook 'Sky-Hanger' and the Vigors 'Tonics' (Bioshock 1 remnant and Sky-Hanger I have no idea where I took the name from) In any event, I was actually pondering how to make things different from a mere 're-run' of the levels.**

**And I realized I didn't have to think much.**

**The cut content.**

**The guys who didn't make it in the retail version.**

**All the stuff that we saw in Demos and gameplay and that in the end wasn't shown in the game itself.**

_**That**_** is what I'll be showing to make this something more than a mere 're-run' of the levels. As well as the good old saying of 'Why should I sky-hook through the world, when I can just burn a hedgerow to get to the other side?'**


	3. An Old Friend

Sometimes

Chapter Three.

Fireman had one thing that worked against them. Every single time they came around, there was but one thing that truly made them not as fearless as they were meant to be.

Sure, they had fireproof vests and clothes; metal pipes reinforced their arms and legs, and could generally crack a rib with ease. They also surrounded themselves with flames with the Devil's Kiss and were pretty tough bastards when in group.

They could be subjected to Possession.

The negative side of the coin came to Booker as he looked at his hand, and more precisely at the ethereal green creature that danced around it with a smile on her ghostly face.

He hadn't found the upgrade. He hadn't found the mechanized booth to buy the upgrade. There was a Fireman coming and he was going to shoot it down with his pistol, little amount of Salt running in his body and a Possession that wasn't able to control him. This was because, of course, his machinegun had chosen that moment to announce with the rattling of the empty chamber that he was without ammo for it.

And the automated machine gun mounted near the checkpoint was soon going to turn back into an ally of the Columbia Police department. He had to depart, and fast. If only the guards had torn it apart, he might have been able to scavenge the bullets from it.

He also needed a change of clothes.

The high pitched sounds of a creaking stove came to his ears once more, followed by a large metallic clank as a Fireman dropped down from a rooftop nearby. It cracked the ground as flames sprouted from his entire body, sending a wave of heat that made Booker's eyes tear up.

"You want a piece of me!?" he screamed to the cop in the copper suit.

Cop in the copper suit…he had to remember that next time he wanted to crack a joke to Elizabeth —no, Anna.

The Vigor's fire grenade was flung as a welcome party, but Booker didn't stay there to watch. He dashed in the nearby alley, the sound of the automated machinegun exploding behind him together with the grenade itself. The alleyway was a dirty one, with barely enough room for him to run. He didn't look back as he passed by a couple of trashcans, the feeling of being pursued spiking him up.

He could hear the clanking noises of the Fireman behind him, probably already a comet of fire as it followed him through the narrow streets. Booker turned the corner and winced at the sight of the dead-end. Well, not actually a dead-end as much as a drop into the clouds and beneath. He turned around, taking in the dreadfully short list of options available to him.

He could fight a Fireman with a pistol or jump down to the abyss below, hoping some sort of luck had a Sky-Line, a floating balloon or something like that at the ready. He could see the heat ripples start to form as the mix of man and boiler neared, and his eyes just then settled on one of those metal ladders that were usually an emergency escape from fires.

"Talk about luck." He muttered, as he deftly began to climb up. Beneath him, the stomps of the Fireman suddenly stilled. Booker gulped slowly, as his eyes went downwards to look at why the fiery policeman had stilled. The thing was looking up.

The thing was looking up at him. Its hands were now touching the metal of the ladder, flames erupting from them as they heated up his only escape route.

He furiously began to climb again, when a loud creak caught his attention. The Fireman hadn't been heating the metal to burn him alive while he climbed. He had heated it so he could more easily tear apart from the wall the ladder.

Booker felt his stomach churn as the ladder detached itself from the wall, the strength of the Fireman easily flinging the malleable base of the ladder _downwards_. The nails and hooks used to pin the ladder to the wall came undone in a second, and Booker couldn't do anything but scream as he fell back down.

The upper side of the ladder crashed against the façade of the building behind, breaking a window in the process. The hole seemed to give into a normal apartment, but the thing that caught the man's attention was the presence of a metallic heater in a corner. As the Fireman pulled again, Booker made a one second decision to jump into the open crevice, Sky-Hook actually extended and hoping to God that it worked in the same way, regardless of form.

The Hook was magnetized. It shouldn't have cared about magnetizing itself to cranes or to metal surfaces, as long as it was indeed magnetic. That actually saved his life, as the hook's magnetic properties barely made him pass through the hole created in the apartment's wall, making him fly across the room as the instrument attached itself to the heater.

Booker detached the Hook from the surface, taking deep ragged breaths as he could hear the clanking of the Fireman still down below. He needed a machinegun, or some Salts and an automated turret. He could actually use a Carbine, his most favorite weapon that easily replaced his pistol any time he got his hands on it. He began to look through the apartment, scavenging for clothes mostly but also Silver Eagles and whatever snack he could find.

If there was one thing he had learned about Columbia, was that enemies were everywhere, it was difficult to sit down and eat a proper lunch, and money made the world go round.

The last one was actually something he had learned in the world itself, rather than Columbia…but it was comforting knowing some things would never change.

He looked himself over in the mirror. He had hurried along, grabbing the first leather coat and pair of clean trousers he had found, tearing apart his bloody shirt and changing it with another. He had then directly flung over his head the water from a pitcher, taking away the soot and the sweat.

Once dried, he'd look no different from any other Columbian civilians. He grabbed one of those bowler hats people were so keen on wearing around this town and then made to walk for the door. He stilled as he could heard the clanking sound coming from the hole in the wall.

The Fireman's head appeared just as he hurriedly slammed the door open and dashed out of it. The fiery grenade flung by the man hit against the handrail of the stairs of the building, lighting itself up as he barely managed to duck and roll downwards. Bringing his hands up to protect his head, he gritted his teeth as the explosion burned the wood handrail. He kept on rolling down the stairs, until he finally landed on the floor below. He could hear the rattling of the doors around him, as those who were in their homes probably began to head outside to check.

He ran, quickly slamming his shoulder against the wooden door at the end of the corridor, breaking through and heading from the window.

He had been at the third floor, now this was the second floor. He could survive a fall from this height, and with a Fireman behind he challenged the thing to follow him through.

Sky-Hook first, he broke through the window of yet another apartment, leaving behind a terrorized family who had barely seen him pass as a blur. The wind hit him in the air, as he fell. Below him, one of those mechanized carts with those electrical horses passed by just in time. He crashed through the roof of it, landing on the soft interior of velvet and silk.

Booker groaned as he felt his bones creak. Most likely he had broken a few ribs. He could feel the taste of blood, coppery as it was, on his tongue. The mechanical carriage was empty, but as he fumbled and finally reached for the door, he opened it to reveal an empty street. He stumbled down, landing on the cobblestone. He needed a medical kit or something like that, because pain was flaring throughout his entire body.

"Last time it wasn't this difficult," he groaned. His body felt heavy and every time he breathed a sharp jolt of pain coursed through him, making him wince. Above him, the building he had narrowly escaped from was now on fire, burning as the Fireman within was probably trying to find him. He grunted as he took a step forward.

A nearby explosion forced him backwards, just as a huge chunk of concrete belonging to the façade of the building exploded, falling down on the mechanical carriage and tearing it apart, leaving behind a broken electrical horse that somehow began to walk forward on its own accord.

He couldn't stay there much longer.

Booker began to wobble forward, his steps taking him through the fallen debris and further down. He nicked an apple from a nearby stand, before wincing as he took a bite out of it. He could die with a full stomach at least. Even chewing hurt, but since he didn't have any morphine from the medical kits, he had to make do with what he could. The electric horse buzzed as it kept going on forward, crashing against a store once the road began to turn in a curve.

He wouldn't have even cared for that, if not for the glint of a Vigor standing on the nearby counter of the destroyed shop.

It was a smith, and as the Devil's Kiss Vigor enticed him to walk through the broken panel of glass to claim it, he couldn't help but notice the amount of stuff that hung around. Maybe calling the shop owner a 'smith' was exaggerated. There were various outfits made of iron, and many broken pieces that seemed to belong to Handymen and Firemen —even a few heads of the Boys of Silence stood eerily in a corner.

He looked at the cash register and at the Vigor next to it.

Free cash and one of the most destructive Vigors in circulation. Who was he to say no?

He drank avidly, as he turned around the counter to nick the money in the register. Beneath it, as if God himself had heard him pray, a medical kit stood in wait together with a shotgun and a few cartridges.

"Lucky day." Booker mused as he grabbed the weapon and charged it, before he heard the satisfying 'cha-chak' of the loaded gun.

He could now count on Seventy-Seven silver Eagles.

…

He blinked awkwardly at that.

He wasn't one for deep thinking: he left that to philosophers, thinkers and the likes. He was one for 'aim the gun, shoot the gun' but Seventy-Seven Silver eagles?

He looked to the left and to the right, and then dropped one of the coins back on the counter.

"Better safe than sorry," he mumbled as he walked outside.

Just in time for the Fireman to come crashing down straight in front of him.

"You've got to be kidding me!" he yelled out loud as the Fireman turned with his hands already covered in flames. There were a few chinks in his bronze armor, and pieces of his vest had been torn, probably by the zeal in looking for him through a burning building, yet the creature was largely unscathed.

The creature ran at him, his boiler steaming and whistling as his entire body was covered in flames.

Booker brought the shotgun down and aimed.

The moment the creature's right hand swept forward, to crash into him, Booker DeWitt fired at the shoulder of the beast, swiftly moving to the side as the torn limb flew in the air, granting him an opening in the 'wall of fire' that the Fireman had become.

The Fireman dashed inside, screaming in pain as he collided against the wooden counter.

Booker spun around in that moment, firing two more shots at the back of the creature. A valve popped away as the whistling began to increase. With wide eyes, Booker moved behind the wall of what once was the side of the shop's glass panel. Not a second later, and the Fireman detonated with a final whistle. Booker covered his ears as the sharp sound and the rain of molten copper followed.

Taking a deep breath, the covered in ash man walked back inside. He shook his head at the sight of such destruction, but when the corpse of the Fireman came into view, he couldn't help but smile.

Firemen had bulky outfits not only to protect them from their boiler's heat, but also because they had small boxes contained within their suits that held the prime necessities in dealing with burns and low salts. He opened up the charred body without any care, removing the suit's fireproof protection as the smell of burned flesh assaulted his nostrils.

It was a smell he had grown used to, and it no longer made him retch.

The small metallic box was warm to the touch, but as he opened it he couldn't help the smile that grew on his face. He avidly drank the small blue Salts bottle, before settling himself to grab the medical kit and opening it. Gauze, bandages, wire to close open wounds, a few gels and creams created by the city to help in mending broken bones…and morphine.

During his travel through the city, only he and Morphine had been through the thick and the thin together. It wasn't as if there was much of a choice: how else would he be able to keep on fighting through battles, with no time to bandage his wounds?

Elizabeth had no idea of course. She always fussed when he got wounded, but bandages and sutures could only bring a man so far.

The real friend of Booker, in the city of Columbia, was Morphine.

He really had horrible friends.

**Author's notes**

**Fireman fight done!**

**Now, I think we can settle Booker's difficulty level in the 1999 mode + realistic needs and necessities (mod of oblivion/skyrim reference) basically…**

**It's going to be a long run, but he'll manage. **

**For the meeting with Elizabeth, you'll have to wait a bit I'm afraid. Saltonstall comes before him meeting her, (from the gameplay, Booker is alone when he meets him the first time) but apparently he is there further down the road with Elizabeth. So he's a recurring evil that was cut off (a pity, but considering Bioware, who's yelling out loud: they'll put a DLC with him in?)**

**Glad this story is liked, and I thank you all for the reviews.**

**Now, Booker as a Morphine Addict might seem bad, but seriously, I'm all for 'it's a game' and 'don't delve too deep' but they have Quantum Particles to keep their balloons afloat, and every soldier had Morphine in his/hers backpack since the American Civil war. (Extract from Wikipedia follows)**

**Later it was found that morphine was more addictive than either alcohol or opium, and its extensive use during the American Civil War allegedly resulted in over 400,000[72] sufferers from the "soldier's disease" of morphine addiction.[73][74] This idea has been a subject of controversy, as there have been suggestions that such a disease was in fact a fabrication; the first documented use of the phrase "soldier's disease" was in 1915**

**So for Booker it is natural to use Morphine as a pain reliever. The game IS set in 1912.**

**Answering a question: Booker was given his 'package' on the rowing boat. Since he starts on the arrival dock he does have the key. He also has the gun because he didn't lose it during the voyage.**

**And 'trouble' is relative. The thing I didn't like was that Booker held his gun 'low' when passing non-violent areas, instead of hiding it or taking it out. There is no 'camouflage' idea, but if you hear the radio and enter the house where there are the police taking witnesses, Booker is NEVER identified correctly. He is either a 'French dwarf' or an 'Irish-man'. **

**Which means that indeed, his level of trouble, (Provided there are no witnesses of past events) are drastically lower, and since there is no 'False-Prophet' hype, he isn't actually hounded by ALL the department. He is just a Vox Populi. A lucky one maybe, but still just one.**


	4. The Cawing of the Crows

Sometimes

Chapter Four.

He had to admit it: sometimes Columbia really looked foreign to him. He couldn't easily comprehend how the city could go through such extremes, but maybe it was because of the morphine in his body. He was pretty sure that, was he still in pain, he wouldn't be looking at the Columbia's Scouts in the same way as he was looking at them now. The boys were marching in their perfectly ironed clothes, sporting proudly their badges as an older man moved at the head of the 'company'.

"We are the Earnest Eagles of Columbia! What is our creed!?" the man yelled out loud marching in rhythm.

"Duty above all! Family above the rest!" the children intoned as they marched.

Thankfully, he had never fought a single children, except those haunting 'boys of silence' and even then, only in the future…if he recalled it correctly. At the present, the children were marching through with discipline and a good dose of happiness radiating from them —unaware that just a few roads back he had killed a cop in a copper suit.

"Did you get that, Elizabeth?" he murmured to his side, before wincing. There was no Elizabeth next to him to get the joke. That kinship he had felt with her now made so much more sense, when it came down to her being his daughter. She had been like a child, and yet also tenacious in her own decisions just like him. She was all her father, and he wasn't saying this because he was prejudiced, of course.

The group of Boy-Scouts soon moved by, and as he mingled with the crowd he stilled next to a vendor, hearing what the paper-boy was yelling just around the corner.

"Urgent news! Vox Populi member at large! Look out for a foreign Irishman or a black-skinned French!" he resisted the urge to snort, mentally patting his head for being right this time around. He could avoid fighting people. It wasn't that difficult.

The people of Columbia actually made it easier, what with their entire mind-set placed on giving the blame to the foreigner and the skin-colored. He was white and American: it was enough to avoid scrutiny as he paid the vendor and walked away with an orange.

He passed by the paper vendor, entering a small luscious park, where a set of white wooden chairs stood in front of a gazebo. On a nearby bench, surrounded by greenery and blooming lilac flowers, an old man was giving off food to a murder of crows. Booker frowned at the sight, but just walked by the elderly man. The only fanatics with the crows had been those of the Order of the Raven, and they went around with a coffin on their backs of all things. He saw that the gazebo was occupied by an elderly man, who wore a blue sport coat and red and white vertically striped pants, the man was speaking the usual propaganda, and he was more than willing to let it drop.

"You must fight the foreigner, people of Columbia! They'll take your gun. They'll take your wife. They'll take your business. They'll take your LIFE!" the man yelled to the empty rows of chairs.

Booker eyes the nearby Sky-Line, just over the edge. He could easily reach it with the Sky-Hook. He gave one last gaze at the two sitting in the park, and then shrugged and jumped. The Sky-Hook magnetized against the railway, speeding towards one of the transiting freighter wagons. He yelled as he inverted the polarity, ending up flying on the other rail and departing quickly, leaving behind the talking to the air old man.

He landed on a square on the other side of the vast chasm between the two floating sections of the city, a wide masonry archway separating him from a shady looking pub. The streets around him were all unfamiliar. They were all clean, patrolled and worst of all there didn't seem to be anything that could direct him to the monument site. Sure, he could see the statue's head appear every now and then behind the last floor of a few tall buildings, but he had no idea on how to reach it.

Booker groaned as he decided to brave the pub in front of him. What was the worst that could happen? He took a step inside, and the next instant he realized just what depths 'worse' could be.

_The Fraternal Order of the Raven reunion._

He blinked. This had to be against some sort of law. There had to be something dictating that he couldn't just walk into a bar, and discover it filled with coffin, masked dark clothed freaks, crows and their shits and without forgetting the part about the entire order enjoying giving fresh food to their pet ravens. Instead that was what he saw.

The barman himself was cleaning a mug and filling it with water, before dropping it on the mouth of a corpse on his counter from which the ravens seemed to be feasting. He didn't know whether to gag at the scene or not, and he had seen his fair share of horrors…both at Wounded Knee and in Columbia itself.

He walked slowly closer to the barman.

The people around him, the guys of the order, stilled just a moment as he passed by them and towards the barman. He looked American, there were no posters yet out for him, and there was no way they would be looking for him as he was. He was still safe. He just had to reach the barman and ask for the road to the monument.

Just like any visiting pilgrim would.

Any visiting American pilgrim would of course visit the monument, before basking in the glory of the Founders, sightseeing the hall of heroes and probably heading off to where Lady Comstock had been interred to give his homages. He could do this.

He just had to lie with the straightest face ever, while surrounded by white supremacist and sadistic freaks that would use every single chance they had to get him trialed on the spot and eaten alive by their pets.

If this was some sort of karmic backslash, for all the times he had sent flaming crows against his enemies, then he was truly sorry in that moment.

"Excuse me, kind man. I am a pilgrim, blessed by the Prophet's vision I have come to visit and I must ask: what is the road to Monument Island? I wish to bring my respectful homages from afar to the statue. I heard there was where the pilgrims first passed through to reach this fair and wonderful city." There, he felt queasy and horrendously sweaty as he said that. It was thicker than honey and utterly disgusting, what he had been forced to say, and yet he had done it.

"It's out of reach now," the barman replied, seemingly assuaged by his speech. Was the man actually smiling? "But worry not! There's a Gondola service just down the road that will bring you where you have to go. If you have your Sky-Hook, then you can reach it even faster by using the Sky-rail on the roof of the bar."

He blinked. Had the man actually believed him? He smiled as he thanked the barman, turning around to leave and head towards the stairs.

In that moment, a gloved hand settled on his shoulder.

"Brother Pilgrim," the thick voice of the masked man at the counter spoke, a crow on his shoulder shrieking out once. "I heard your words and I must say…"

The first instinct of Booker was to reach for his gun. His Pistol as it was called, the 'Broadside' as the citizen of Columbia nicknamed the weapon. His second instinct was to wait. He remembered the guards at the checkpoint. He had to wait this out. He couldn't just go gun blazing…he was completely surrounded after all.

"I am saddened that it might not be kept that way for long. Truly, Columbia once was the city of the blessed, but unless something is done for the blight that infests our noble city, we will be killed! The enemy is strong and wicked, coming to us with needs and taking from us what we have sweated to get!"

Booker widened his eyes in shock, a sentiment that the other man interpreted both correctly and wrongly, because he spoke again.

"Yes brother! Yes! We need to do something or Columbia will die! We of the order of the Fraternal Raven have decided upon a course of action! We must purge the unclean, the foreigner and the dirty! We believe in the sword, the raven and the coffin! We worship the sword, so that we might avenge Columbia. We worship the raven, so that we might cover the city with eyes. We worship the coffin, because it symbolizes the weight of failure. Do you understand us, brother? Do you understand our plight?"

"I do brother, I do! But what can I do to help!?" Booker replied, trying his best worried expression. Was he sufficiently 'aghast' for the pathetic excuse of a fanatic now, he wondered? It wasn't that he actually cared about Chinese or dark-skinned immigrants or not. One of his other selves had apparently kicked the bucket fighting for the Vox to free them, but him? He was still in Columbia for Elizabeth. Had he gone to the raffle, he wouldn't have hesitated to throw the ball at the couple.

He just didn't care about them, not when he had a mission, and not when he had to save Elizabeth...Anna, her name was Anna. Why did he keep referring to her as Elizabeth?

"Join us, brother! Join us and help us swipe away the enemy!"

"Of course I will!" Booker exclaimed back, "What must I do to prove my worth to the order!? Tell me, for if you speak the truth then I need to do something immediately!" Were the men around him really that retarded? Well, they were psychopathic and schizophrenic monsters who loved to live in crow's shit. Wasn't that an answer by itself?

"Ah! The joys of finding a fellow man with our same ideals… Great Crow! I bring onto you a new addition to our folds!" as the covered man spoke, another clad in dark clothes moved forward.

The man was one of the Crow leaders, holding a heavy coffin on his shoulders that Booker knew was filled with all kind of dangerous weapons, coupled with the agonizing pain of their murder of crow ability, if he failed… he didn't believe he would manage to get out of there alive.

"Let us see then… are you American, with no filth on your entire family registry?"

"Yes sir," he replied, trying to keep his gaze downwards, as when he had been nothing more than a timid recruit for the army.

"Have you already fought against the foreigner?"

"At Wounded Knee sir," he replied, "I set fire to the enemy, set fire to the tends with their wounded in…I took their scalps and their limbs, and I kept on fighting until I succumbed to fatigue at the end of the battle." The last part, he whispered. He had no recollection of what he had done there…but he knew that Comstock's Voxophone had said that. And what Comstock had done at Wounded Knee…he had done too.

"Wonderful! Our lord, the Prophet, he too fought there…this is clearly a sign of God! Rejoice brethren, for I hereby proclaim you our brother! What is your name!?"

Booker looked around, when help came in the form of the whisky bottle standing eerily on a nearby table. He jumped on the chance quickly, but in the faint light and busy not to give his game up, he misread the letters.

"Ryan, Wiscart Ryan," the bottle was actually a Rye Whiskey spirit, produced in Columbia, but the name had been on the tip of his tongue till then, so why not?

"Very well, Ryan Wiscart," the great Crow remarked. "There is one final thing you must do now, to become worthy of us," the man opened his coffin, taking out the Vigor of the Murder of Crows and a sword, one of those the men used. "Drink and pledge yourself to the cause of the great Lady Columbia!"

"Pledge! Pledge!" the other roared and cheered as they brought their own bottles of alcohol up in the air.

Booker winced before trying to come up with something nice.

"I pledge myself in the name of the Sword, the Raven and the Coffin to the cause of the Fraternal Order of the Ravens! May I never rest until the last of foreigners lies defeated, feasted upon by the murder of crows!" and then among the cheers he gulped down the Vigor feeling it pour through his body as he felt his skin shudder and crack.

His left hand sprouted feathered wings, but…but something felt different.

"Hold onto the sword, it is a _Nostrum_," the man said. Booker widened his eyes, what the hell were Nostrums!?

"The Murder of Crows will now become yourself, granting you the chance to fly and to see through the eyes of the ravens as you reach your destination." There were more cheers from the gathered crowd.

"Smite the foreigners!"

"Burn their houses!"

"Bring out your dirty servant, barman! The one in the back! Let us see the blood flow!" and with those words, both the barman and Booker froze. From the tables around them, a couple of coffin-bearing fanatics moved, smashing apart the doors of the bar and grabbing a dark-skinned man who was now frightened and pleading for his life.

"Kill the foreigner, Wiscart! Kill the enemy and the leech of Columbia!"

The two pushed on his knees the man, holding him still as the adult cried and begged.

"Please no! Please I have family, please!"

"More leeches to kill later then!" one of the hood-wearing men said with a loud laugh. Booker tensed, clenching his fist as he could feel the tonic charge.

"Kill the foreigner!" the leader ordered, pointing at the colored man.

If Anna had been there, she would have done something to stop this from happening. Maybe she would have opened a tear or something. If Anna had been there, he probably wouldn't have remained a second more in Columbia.

Without Anna however, there was only one choice.

The two men of the Order of the Raven moved aside, as the murder of crows flew in the air, feasting upon the dark-skinned servant. The loud screams and yells echoed into Booker's ears, as he moved closer with the sword of the Order in his right hand.

The sword's tip pierced the head of the screaming man, killing him as the body fell on the ground with a sick squelching sound. The ravens in the bar flew down on the corpse of the man, feasting on it as it was fresher meat.

Booker did not gag.

He knew that if he were to stare at Elizabeth now, she would not only disapprove, but be angry at him. She would cross her arms and run away, maybe after hitting him in the head with a heavy object of sorts. He knew that, but it didn't change things.

He wasn't in Columbia as a hero to the Vox Populi, or as saint descended from Heaven.

He was in Columbia for Anna, and no-one else.

And he would get Anna back, even if he had to deal with the devil himself.

"Wear thy hood now, brother!" the leader of the crows intoned, showing him one of those dark blue caps that the order wore. "We will have an outfit ready for you soon, do not worry! Barman, more drinks!"

The Barman shuddered, but spun to obey. The next instant, the door of the bar swung open as a couple of guards entered in a hurry.

"The Prophet calls us all in a wide hunt for the Vox Populi! Any believer of their words has to be brought in for questioning! Crows of the Order of the Raven, we need your assistance!"

"For Lady Columbia!" the crowd cheered as they ran outside following the guards. He didn't, instead silently making his way to the back and upstairs, reaching for the roof.

The rooftop did give him a better vision of the city, and as he dropped the bloody sword on the ground, it clanked heavily. The man had family. He had family too. It wasn't even a 'you or me' situation, because if he hadn't killed the man, then they would have killed them both.

Really, he wasn't trying to justify killing an innocent. The man had chosen to come to Columbia: he should have known what piece of shit the townspeople were, right?

There was just no way he felt fine about it. His stomach lurched as he moved to the border of the roof's rail to puke beyond it. He breathed, deeply.

"See brother? The Hand is _different_." To that extremely familiar female voice, Booker turned, eying with a baleful glare the Lutece twins. The man was holding in his hands a velvet pillow, with the yellow Vigor for the shield resting on it.

"I don't think so, sister." Robert chided, as he shook his head. Rosalind was currently polishing a few jugs, as if she had carried them from the bar below. The fact that while she cleaned one the other levitated near her, colored grey like if they were nothing more than tears, didn't sound all that strange to Booker.

"No? He has something he didn't have in the beginning." Rosalind's retort brought Robert to blink back at her.

"He doesn't. He has something that adds to what he picked up. It is no different than picking up seventy-six coins or seventy-seven."

"It is _different_!"

"It is not!"

"Robert, one of these days, you will tell me why you think that A and B are the same."

"They aren't the same. This is."

Booker sighed once, before grabbing the Shield Vigor and gulping it down.

"Mr. Booker, wait. We need to tal—" Rosalind's words were lost to his ears, as he jumped from the rooftop to reach for the Sky-Rail. In that moment however the building floated downwards, and with wide eyes Booker realized he wasn't going to make it: the Hook was too far to be magnetized.

"Catch Mr. Booker!" the voice of Rosalind resounded behind him, as the sword of the Order of the Raven was thrust towards him. He didn't know how he managed to grab it, but once he did he turned his gaze to where the Sky-Rail was going, distancing itself as he was falling down nearly beneath the clouds.

He brought his left hand forward, and the strangest sensation of all squashed through his brain.

He felt himself torn apart in minuscule pieces and bits that flew upwards, as his eyes saw at the same time through different angles his surroundings. He cawed as he felt himself being 'smashed' back together far higher than before, just in range for the Hook to magnetize properly.

As the Hook landed him on the rail, he sighed in relief.

He could do this. He could reach Monument Island.

"Wait for me, Anna…I'm coming."

**Author's notes**

**Murder of Crows: check.**

**The Nostrums are a 'cut' content that was replaced with the Gears…Only, Nostrums are permanent modifiers that work like infusions. I decided to merge the Gears' working with the Nostrums. Basically: pieces of Gear that work on adding benefits to the Vigors.**

**(And let's admit it: who wasn't jealous of the Crows ability to just 'teleport' through a murder of crows? Or of the Fireman bursting into a flame comet? We have their own Vigors, why can they and we cannot!?)**

**Anna is coming in the next chapter, for those who still can't wait.**

**I know you all thought there was going to be an epic battle with Saltonstall, but that would have been the False Prophet Booker. This here is the Metal Gear Solid Booker…**

**Who killed a civilian.**

'**The Hand' dealt is the order of Vigors and 'events' happening. **

**If somebody believes the 'reunion of Fraternal Order of the Raven' to be some strange 'forced event' then…you might be **_**more**_** right than you believe.**

**I am not racist, but Columbia is Columbia, the year is the year it is and the Order is the Order, so if someone felt offended…take it out with the game, not me.**


	5. The Price of Knowledge

Sometimes

Chapter Five.

A few colored banners beneath him alerted him of where he had ended up. The site was familiar, and he couldn't help but recall the last time he had gone through that very same area once. The Gondola service was in function however. He landed atop the wooden surface, his eyes travelling to the small crowd of Columbia Citizens who seemed to be paying the fare to travel. He had thought of taking the Sky-Line all the way, like the last time, and then to land where Comstock Zeppelin would have been docked.

That was wistful thinking, because since Comstock wasn't on his tail, there wouldn't be a zeppelin for him to take and crash against. He realized it then: he could simply buy a ticket and enjoy his trip towards the Monument.

"Five Silver Eagles for a ticket! Have your tickets ready!" a bantering man dressed in white and red stripes screamed, "Come and travel to see Monument Island!"

He grasped the silver coins with ease, paying for his own ticket and standing near a corner of the boat. Soon, the heated noise of the hovering boat reached a light rumbling, and they were off. The easy, sedated pace of travelling was new to him. There was no fighting. No bullets grazing his skin, forcing him to hide and pluck them out with his fingers. There was no death, and the citizens were all smiling fools looking around through the binoculars.

"Hey you," a voice called to him, and as he turned he came face to face with one of the Columbia's police guards. "Ticket please."

He smiled back and showed the ticket, in so doing accidentally displaying the bloodied sword he had decided to hold at his belt. He should have cleaned it, but the again it wasn't as if he planned to fight enemies at sword-point.

The guard narrowed his eyes, before slowly morphing into perplexity.

"You a Crow?"

Booker calmly took out from his inner jacket the hoodie of the Crows, that the leader had gifted him.

"Ah, new one at that?"

"Yes," he replied through gritted teeth.

"Seemed so. Crows don't pay. You're in the Police Department now."

Booker's eyes literally widened beyond what he could possibly do. He was in the _police_ department? What the hell…a hood and a bloody sword and he became one of the nice guys who could do no wrong? Was this it? Was this all he should have done the first time around to reach Monument Island with ease? There had to be something wrong with the picture. He could have stolen the hood off someone else, heck, he might have even killed the previous guy!

"I didn't know that —well it doesn't matter." Booker shrugged, as the guard merely grunted back and went to ask tickets to the others.

"You're a Crow?" an eager voice soon came into his ears, coming from way beneath him. His gaze went to the side, where a six or seven year old girl with twin pony-tails was looking at him earnestly, holding a Songbird within her arms. She had a blue and white dress, and her blond hair seemed to shine in the light of the sun. Her blue eyes looked at him earnestly, as if awaiting some sort of wonder from him.

"Eleanor!" the woman next to her, probably her mother, chided. "That is extremely rude."

"But mom, he's a Crow! He fights the bad guys who come to Columbia!"

The Crows…the Crows were the special police. The Guards were the fighters, the enforcers of public order, but the Crows apparently were the ones who worked to weed out the inner fighting. He supposed Crows could actually work as pretty good spies, what with their crow-movement and teleportation. They had the fanaticism after all, so it was possible.

"Indeed I do," he replied trying his best smarmy tone. "Why, my sword was recently bloodied with just one of such bad guys. Remember," somehow, an idea struck him like thunder, "Don't be a Dimwit."

"Yes sir!" the girl bobbed her head up and down as she nodded, her pony-tails flying all around as her eyes settled on the sword at his belt. He should find a sheath for the thing actually.

The woman just smiled then, slightly less tense than she had been before. The Crows were probably also the secret police of the state, trying to make sure everyone was with Columbia one-hundred percent through.

"And now to your left, you can admire Monument Island!" the voice of the mechanized pilot reached his ears, forcing him to stare in that direction. There it was: the monument of the Angel of Columbia. The monument of Elizabeth, his daughter.

He clenched his fists as he took a few step on the side, his eyes seeking desperately a Sky-Line or a magnetized hook. There was nothing. The boat seemed to be taking a long circle around it, but there was nothing he could actually touch. Slowly, the ship lurched to a halt halfway towards the tower.

The mechanized pilot began to hum.

It began to hum those dreadful notes that came out of the pipes. The notes that attracted Songbird.

"It's Songbird!"

The blood froze in Booker's veins as the giant leather winged creature flew in the air above them. It sung as it flapped its wings, making circles around the boat.

He had escaped from the creature once, and another him had fought the beast to a stand-still many times. Well, as the beast flew around the boat, distracting the people…he felt the rush of the possession departing from his hand, as he gave a gentle 'pat' on the back of the motorized navigator.

"Setting new route!" the mechanized thing screeched as it slowly began to spin its helm around. The direction taken brought him to silently close his eyes. They were nearing the monument now.

"New route! We will be exploring the open areas of Monument Island lady and gentleman!"

The boat hovered nearer. He could feel the tingling in his legs and arms betray his excitement. He was going to meet with Elizabeth…no, Anna. Her name was Anna, his daughter. What was he going to tell her?

Somehow he doubted that 'I am your father' would work. Maybe first he'd get her out of the tower, then he'd come up with a way to broach the argument. He could do that. He was pretty sure the girl would take it well, if he mentioned Comstock kidnapping her and him coming to save her.

Maybe he would gloss over the part where he had sold her to settle his debts. He had gone back to save her however, but it had been too late by then. Suddenly, a sharp shriek came from high above. Songbird wasn't going to attack them, was he?

With a dreadful feeling in his stomach he realized that yes, he was going to. The hulking creature of leather and wings descended upon the boat with all the might he had seen her possess when they fought side by side in dealing with the zeppelins.

He brought his hand forward, the closeness with the monument enough for him to jump and land against one of the railings with the lasts bouts of the Salts he possessed. It was a moment, and then he jumped.

And as he did that, a single sound from behind him brought his soul to a shuddering halt.

"Mr. Crow!"

He was already gone in a murder of crows, by the time the sound fully impacted into his head revealing to him just what he had done. He had thought Songbird would try and thwart the boat. He hadn't thought Songbird would literally tear through the boat of wood, destroying it and smashing through the people who stood within.

His entire body screamed in the cawing of his crows, rather than in his human tongue, as the flock flew further towards the safety of the Monument Island's land. He rematerialized in mid-air, his back heavy, as he brought forth his Sky-Hook to magnetize on the nearby crane. The tug on his arm brought him forward for the final bouts, but it was as he attached the Sky-Hook to the iron crane that he completely came to understand what he had done.

He stood there limp, as he recalled the screams. He could feel the heavy weight around his shoulders, the feeling of dread settling on his bones as—

"Mr. Crow?" a pipsqueak voice rose behind him as he anxiously gulped, recognizing the voice. Had the girl attached herself to his back the moment he had disappeared? Did the murder of crow even _work_ that way? He had no idea about that. He had never used a Nostrum before, and he certainly hadn't used the Murder of Crows with a passenger. He didn't know if it was meant to be or not, but now as he flung himself on the ground, he could distinctively hear the high-pierced scream of the girl on his back.

The six-seven year old girl named Eleanor, with her twin pony-tails, was holding tightly to him. She fell on the ground with a hard thud the moment he landed, her scream turning into a set of wails and cries of 'mommy'. She was crying —bringing her hands to her eyes to rub them— and as she stood there in her slightly torn dress, she looked the prime example of misery.

"Now this is different," the infamous voice of Rosalind cut in the air. "Surely, Robert: the hand is different."

"The hand is the same, Rosalind," Robert's voice was actually starting to show a slight anger, as he repeated the words. "The hand is the same."

"You two!" Booker snapped, turning to stare at the two of them with anger in his voice. "What is the meaning of this!?"

"The hand is the same, Mr. DeWitt," Robert commented, "but the end is, by my meager opinion, changeable with foreknowledge."

"In my opinion the hand diverges, but the ending remains the same _for the changed hand_," Rosalind remarked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"What is this hand you're talking about, the both of you!?" he snarled, nearly wishing he could fire at the two and actually manage to wound them. Oh, he was sure the intellectual types would be highly ineffective against an iron bullet.

"When you came to Columbia, you didn't have a gun," Robert remarked. "Did having one from the start change things?"

"You attacked the policeman at the checkpoint, didn't you? Without a pistol, you wouldn't have, and they might have let you go." Rosalind seemed amused now.

"However, because you had a pistol, you fired. Because you had Possession, you killed."

"Because you fired, you were hounded by the police all the same."

"Because you were hounded, you killed a Fireman, and harnessed the tonic."

"Because you didn't fight, you ended up with the Murder of Crows nonetheless."

"Because you had the Murder of Crows, you still managed to reach the Gondola station."

"From there you caught the Gondola, but because you did, it crashed."

"Lived, live, will live. Mr. Booker, if you lived differently, would you live again the same? You can answer yes or no, heads or tails, but how you will live then...that's a matter of choice and perspective." Robert remarked finally, "or fate. Depending on the circumstances fate might be actually the key. Are you fated to keep on dying, Mr. Booker? Hundreds of you died, trying to free the girl after all. Thousands of you never even tried. Then again, more than a million never even sold their daughter to begin with, so it all boils down to the single inevitable question that remarks the true incipit and ending of the tale: _why you_?"

"Mr. DeWitt," Rosalind commented then, "in life, there are _choices and consequences_. There are ifs and buts, just like there are truths and lies. Theory and practice seldom yield the same results, which is why things need to be field-tested. The hand is nothing more than a metaphorical phraseological exploit to remark the different achievements of your—"

"Yeah, I lost you there," Booker muttered, shaking his head. "So what you're telling me is that everything will go down the drain, but with a different pipe?"

"No!" Robert actually clapped at that, "but you're starting to understand! And that's more than I could hope! Well, the true point is that the pipes will be the same, only…arranged differently on a set of subsequent choices? And the end result will be something else than we have already seen, which is why we can't see it unless it's done!"

"I on the other hand," Rosalind piped in once more, "rather believe that the ending of the changed hand will not change. Thus bringing you to the same foregone conclusion as thousands of other Booker DeWitt."

"So there are thousands of me going around this field-test of yours?" he asked slowly. The ideas of thousands of him doing the same things as him…it was mind-boggling and utterly ridicule.

"Ah, yes and no." Robert pointed out. "Technically, you are the sole prime-example of a successfully designed test for the destruction of a time-loop paradox."

"Speak English," Booker growled.

"What my twin is trying to say," Rosalind explained, "is that you are already a guaranteed product. You have already successfully altered the multiverse once with your choices, so…"

"So I can alter it again?"

"See Rosalind? He's _understanding_!"

Booker didn't know whether to be annoyed or not. Truly, Robert Lutece was coming closer and closer to being sent on the receiving end of a Volley Gun…if he ever got his hands on one of those again.

"And he's probably closer to murdering you," Rosalind chuckled back. "In any event, Mr. DeWitt, remember that whether my twin or I are correct, the ending is different regardless."

"And what about the others?" Booker suddenly murmured, his eyes looking at the twins.

There was silence in the cobblestone path that circled the outer ring of the Monument Island.

"What about the others?" Rosalind asked calmly.

"Well, are they going to make it, or not?"

"Worrying for your other selves now, Mr. Booker?" Robert muttered.

"And what of their Annas?" Booker suddenly whispered. "There are worlds where she isn't saved, right? I saw one of those. I know they exist."

"Yes." Rosalind admitted.

"Rosalind!" Robert chided, but Rosalind merely brought her left hand upwards, as if silencing her twin from speaking.

"Even if you destroyed Comstock's reality of him being you, even then this," she gestured around herself, "wouldn't exist had you actually destroyed all of them. What you did was destroy quite a bit of them, but not all of them. And even then, you cannot actually go back in time. Tears don't work that way. Sure, you can travel through dimensions, maybe to a dimension where time is behind or ahead of events…but not actually go back in time from your original dimension."

"Rosalind! Stop, stop it!" Robert actually screamed. "What is it!? The different chromosome!? Do you have any idea what you're telling him if he _understands_!?"

"Well, you said the hand was the same, didn't you Robert?" Rosalind retorted.

"_I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DID THIS, YOU SORE LOSER YOU ARE!_" Robert's scream echoed in the silence of the monument, but to Booker it didn't matter. The man's eyes were wide as his right hand went to his throat.

"It doesn't matter if I die during the baptism," he whispered. "It _never_ mattered. There isn't only one dimension. There isn't only one Booker. There isn't only one Anna. There isn't only one Comstock. If…If I kill myself in a dimension where I still have to choose baptism, I destroy Columbia in _that_ dimension. The others are free. You lied."

His head shook slowly.

"You lied to me, you lied to Anna. You lied to all of us!"

"Now Mr. DeWitt, there is no need to be so hasty in judgment." Robert's hands went up in defense. "We did not lie. There are an infinite amount of universes which will not be created, but that doesn't mean that the choices you did along the way the first time did not create universes…and those will keep on existing, regardless of whether you enjoy them or not."

"No matter what, multiverses have existed since the dawn of choice. The moment the universe was created, another was. From there, it became exponential." Rosalind shrugged slightly. "It is extremely rare to comprehend the sheer magnitude, the scope, the width, of infinite choices and casual events, mixed with the randomness of utter chance. To understand it, well…"

"It's to be us." Robert nodded calmly. "We are whenever and wherever, Mr. DeWitt, do you understand the magnitude of those two single words?"

"Whenever, wherever." Rosalind parroted. "We are behind you and in front of you, to the left and right, up and below. We are talking to you and to another you; we are juggling balls while another you watch us through the telescope. We are asking head or tail to another you. We are _everywhere and nowhere at the same time_."

"And this…this you cannot defeat." Robert whispered. "Telling you this is no different than telling an ant that no matter how much he or she struggles, she will never defeat an anteater."

"So why this?" Booker asked, his gaze falling around him.

"Because it's a test." Rosalind remarked. "Stretch the boundaries until they snap back at you."

"A great man once said, says and will say," Robert began, "A man chooses, a slave obeys."

"And we all make choices," Rosalind continued, "But in the end, our choices make us."

And Booker blinked, and the twins were gone.

And as he laid his eyes on Monument Island, he felt his throat parched and his tongue dry. He was saving Anna, but even if he did, even if he truly did save her…

Another Booker would fail. Another Anna would die.

He wasn't selfless, or a martyr. He wasn't a sort of hero who wanted everyone to be happy…but the other Annas were his daughters too. The other Bookers were him. He knew the feeling of utter loss, of utter despair when life tells you that death is the only solution to your problems. He had done that, he had swallowed his cowardice and done what he had to do.

And now, now of all times, he had been told it didn't matter.

It didn't matter because even if he repeated everything, someone else would fail.

And another Anna would die.

He didn't believe their 'conversion' meant anything less than death. He chilled as he remembered the words of that Anna, the old one who was older than him.

_It is too late for me._

_Time eroded hope._

He shuddered, but a sniffle from behind him caught his attention again, and he turned to look at the girl who was now finally stopping her tears and her wails. The girl looked around for a moment, before settling her gaze on him. She looked so lost, with her puffy red eyes and the lack of even her doll. She got up on her knees and looked at him again once more.

Then, hesitantly so, she brought both her frail arms up and whispered.

"Up Mr. Crow, please?"

And up he brought her. He knew Monument Island was largely uninhabited, so holding her didn't present a risk…but what then?

The girl settled on his shoulders, holding herself to his forehead. The girl did weight, but nothing like the sins he now held. He walked through the early desolate forest that surrounded Monument Island, lighting up a Fire Grenade to burn through the hedgerows that separated him from the walkable cobblestone path that led him deeper within. The girl cheered at him, clapping her hands earnestly.

"You're really strong Mr. Crow!" she exclaimed. Maybe the girl still had a father of sorts? He had seen only the wife, so maybe, just maybe, the man was still alive in Columbia. Well, Songbird aside he could find the girl's father. It would at least damper the feeling of being a blood-soaked murderer. Why hadn't he waited?

Maybe the boat would have turned around; maybe it would have reached the actual docks. Instead he had been too fast. Too arrogant in his own beliefs he hadn't wanted to risk wasting time.

So instead, he had wasted the lives of the innocent.

Anna would rather have Comstock as a father than him, he was sure of it.

The doors of the monument were opened with a bit of effort; their creaking hinges showing him just the same amount of lack of use as the last time. The halls opened to him in their dusty glory, as the lights shimmered.

"Mr. Crow? Are we going to see the lamb of Columbia?" the girl whispered on his shoulders.

"We are," he replied. "Don't touch anything," he added hastily.

"All right Mr. Crow," the girl agreed heartily, tightening her grip on his head as she awed for what surrounded her. The chalkboard with his daughter's progresses made his blood boil. They had treated her as nothing more than some sort of lab-rat, and only now did he actually care to watch, to truly see, what was around him. His footsteps resonated through the halls as he reached for the syphon room.

The rumbling noise that was now coming stronger as he neared didn't hurt much his ears, albeit Eleanor's grip turned slightly painful. Maybe the girl was overly sensible to the noises.

"It hurts Mr. Crow," she whispered. "It's scary."

"Don't worry," he replied with his throat hoarse. "It's nothing. If something happens, I'll protect you."

The grip loosened a bit, and he breathed in relief. A few more steps and he stilled. His eyes travelled through the three objects those men had been testing on. His anger must have been palpable, because the girl on his shoulders whimpered in fear.

The teddy bear, the book, and the…

How _dared_ they.

He had been troubled the first time around, on seeing such things. Now? Now he was furious. He was outright bloodthirsty. He probably would have smashed everything down with a club, had he one. No, he couldn't leave Anna here. He couldn't leave _any_ Anna here.

He began to run, the girl on his shoulders holding tightly as he passed by the blood-curling rooms that held the photos of her changing, the pictures of her trying to pick the lock, the room where her nails and blood was held. He passed by it all, swinging open the doors as the giant syphon room was passed by, his eyes set on the lift on the other side.

The girl on his shoulders screamed in slight fright as he sped through the room, holding tightly as he entered the elevator, before pushing the button that would have led him up. He breathed, holding both of his hands against the wooden surface of the panel.

"Mr. Crow?"

"I'm fine, Eleanor. I'm fine." He didn't believe his own words.

He wasn't fine, but he would be.

He didn't know what to expect, as he bleakly walked out of the lift and towards the first lever, the one that would open the iron protective walls. All that he knew was that, as he opened it and stared for the first time at his daughter, looking through her numbers on the chalk-board, he just knew.

He knew he couldn't wait any longer to hold the girl with her white shirt and blue skirt, who was looking thoughtful at the board. He knew he couldn't wait to stare into those eyes or smile as she settled a tuff of hair out of the way while she worked on a lock.

He knew, and because he knew…

"Close your eyes, Eleanor." Booker intoned, as the Sky-Hook in his left arm began to spin.

There was just a glass panel between them.

And Booker DeWitt would be damned, if he let a single shitty piece of glass keep him out of his daughter's reach.

**Author's notes**

**Sky-Hanger! (Instead of Cliff-Hanger! Got the pun!?)**

**Now, Bioshock Infinite hits us with Symbolism.**

**So I thought by myself…**

"**Why not screw the minds of my readers? Let's hit the Symbolism Route too!"**

**If you haven't caught the blood-freezing similarities within this chapter, then of course you'll have to reread now that I have told you.**

***chuckles***

**Well, now that this is done I would like to foreshadow, by telling one single thing:**

**The source of Elizabeth's powers is the lack of her finger, which remained behind, as explained by the Voxophone 'the source of her power':**

_**What makes the girl different? I suspect is has less to do with what she is, and rather more with what she is not. A small part of her remains from where she came. It would seem the universe does not like its peas mixed with its porridge.**_

**The only supposed question I can think the readers are going to ask is: "will this cross with the first BioshockS?" The answer is no. This is Infinite. There will of course be heavy symbolism involved…**

'**Always a lighthouse, always a city'**

**By the Way…I was thinking that, maybe in the 'esprit' of the game, to put a (Q) where a choice has to be made just to let you see clearly where 'this' Booker makes choices. (He made a bunch of them the previous chapters, I hope I 'defined' the moments clearly to be seen without having to put the (Q) XD ) **


	6. The Wrong Choice

Sometimes

Chapter Six.

The glass shattered in a thousand tiny fragments, their crystal-like surface glinting off as it fell on the ground. The Sky-Hook's blades twirled as it widened the passage, removing the sharp edges of the glass. On the other side, Elizabeth had let out a scream and was now standing with her back against the wall. The way she looked at him with fear lasted only a few seconds, but in those seconds her extremely clear blue eyes showed all the fright a doe would, before being replaced by the outraged tiger-like temper she possessed.

"Who are you!?" she asked bitterly —her hands on her hips. Her mouth tried hard to bite its lower lip, probably to mask the girl's nervousness.

"No time Elizabeth," he replied. He had fallen into his routine words with the girl. He remembered the girl looking around and asking what a thing did or was, while he battled away enemies, and always yelling back at her 'no time, Elizabeth'. Habits were hard to die out, apparently.

"Get over here and let's get out. You want to get out, right?" he didn't have the time to worry about feelings or sweet words. He wasn't one to sugarcoat things to begin with, so that was really all he had to say. The truth he was trying hard to hide was that his heart was clenching from the desire to just hold the girl between his arms and _never_ let her go. She wasn't just a young girl he had taken pity on during their trip through Columbia now.

She was _his_ _daughter_.

She was supposed to be his ray of sunshine, if such a cheesy string of words could be considered of the girl whose powers scared him terribly.

"How do you know my name?" she asked, her eyes narrowing as she took a step forward. Even when faced with a complete stranger, the girl had been eager to get out. He knew that as long as he showed her the way outside, she would follow him like a lamb. The False Shepard assumed an even more eerie tone, now that he realized just what he was doing.

"Mr. Crow! It's the lamb of Columbia!" Eleanor exclaimed from behind his leg. The girl's blue eyes shined brightly as she looked in awe at what was probably a mythical figure for the citizens of Columbia.

"Not now, Eleanor," he replied brusquely. "Elizabeth?" he turned to the woman —no, his daughter— with his right hand extended to help her out of the window. "Grab my hand, and you can be free. We can go to Paris: we can be there by tomorrow without anyone knowing if we are quick."

"How…" Elizabeth barely whispered, her eyes looking at him with a mixture of hesitance and curiosity. "How do you know about that?"

"Oh for the love of—" he snapped, "Do you want that damn bird on us!? We can talk while we move!"

Elizabeth seemed to hesitate for a moment more, but finally her small hand clasped around his, and he pulled her out of the window and into his arms the next second. She smelled of soap and oranges, as he held her maybe a bit too tightly to him for a fleeting instant. This was Anna.

His daughter was within his arms. His precious, little daughter was now in his arms.

"You can let go," the girl huffed in displeasure. He winced slightly, before letting her go and turning to the lift. He picked up Eleanor once more, before entering the lift together with Elizabeth. As he pushed the button and the elevator's doors closed, the girl turned on him.

Bad choice, the elevator.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm…" his throat parched up. The words 'your father' rung in his head a hundred times, and a thousands more were the times he imagined himself telling her those two words and her reaction to them. Would she cheer and hug him, crying out for the lost time? No, he suspected she'd be angry at him. She'd ask where he had been, why Comstock believed he was her father, and so on. It wouldn't do.

"He's Mr. Crow!" Eleanor piped in, standing on his shoulders and giggling as she said that. "He fights bad guys!"

"Is she your daughter?" Elizabeth asked next, looking at the girl on his shoulders with perplexity.

"No," he answered. His inner debate dying down. He wasn't lying to his true daughter. He was just…avoiding the truth, for a foreseeable amount of time that could span from a weeks to maybe a couple of years. He might tell her in the event she would get married to someone and asked who would bring her up to the altar.

Of course, he'd probably make double sure the man was a righteous guy, afraid not of God but of him, before even letting her go anywhere near another male. Still, he knew the girl could take care of herself. She had never been wounded during a battle, so either her luck made her resilient, or something else did. Maybe her tear-abilities?

"So why is she with you?" there was a frown on Elizabeth's face now, her eyes narrowing down in her usual inquisitive face. Had he been blind the first time around? The girl's face when curious or suspicious was so much like his that it was a wonder he hadn't realized it.

"Circumstances," he warily replied.

"Mom fell," the girl softly whispered, her face apparently dropping on Booker's head. "I held on Mr. Crow, because he's strong and protects the weak!" she added then, growing a bit more excited in her tone. Was he some sort of hero in her eyes? He hoped not. He was nobody's hero.

Elizabeth's eyes softened for a moment, before she turned to look at him with a curious face now.

"Why did you come?" she whispered the question.

"I…" 'am your father', four words: it was only four words. He could say four words, couldn't he? "I protect the weak, and I heard your plea for freedom."

"How did you hear about that?" she was back to being suspicious now. Why could he lie with a straight face to the Crows and he couldn't even say one tiny lie to save himself from his daughter's wrath? What was he, stupid?

"You were really sick, Miss Elizabeth!" he was saved by the girl, of all people. "The prophet said you got really hurt, and so nobody could come in to see you. I prayed day and night for you to get better, and so Mr. Crow must have come to get you out now that you're healthy!"

That was an inescapable logic, and Elizabeth's face once more morphed into an amused one. He had to remember to get a kid whenever his daughter was angry at him: shove the kid in front of him and use him or her as a meat shield. It would probably work wonders.

"Does Mr. Crow work for the Prophet then?" she asked sweetly.

He knew sarcasm when he saw it. He blearily shook his head slowly, but it was enough for her to see and for Eleanor to _not_ see.

"Yeah! Crows protect the Prophet from the enemies!"

"He must have a really important job then," Elizabeth smiled, but there was that coldness in her eyes…he knew what that coldness was about, really. It was the same as when she had decided to go and murder Comstock. Probably, his daughter believed him some sort of twisted psycho who had kidnapped the girl for some reason. Maybe as a meat-shield against her. It was kind of ironic how the same thing could be interpreted in two different ways…

He blinked.

Was that what the Lutece twins meant with 'understanding'? Did they mean these sorts of similarities?

"So, Mr. Crow," Elizabeth huffed her chest out, "as the Lamb of Columbia, I can ask you to tell me where we're going?"

Was she playing the boastful lady part? Where had she read something like that? He rolled his eyes as he answered back.

"Lady Comstock's zeppelin. We can take it and go."

"I read about zeppelins: they work on the principle that—" and just like many times before, Booker zoned her out. She was his daughter, but that didn't mean he was all for the science-stuff that she had read. He just numbly nodded every now and then to make her believe he was listening, or muttering 'uh-uh' whenever an assent was liked.

He waited patiently for the lift to reach the ground floor, and once it opened he walked outside first.

"What is this place?" Elizabeth's question caught him unprepared. The last time, they had escaped through the air, crashing down in the middle of one of Columbia's beaches of all things. Now instead, they were walking their way out. The Syphon room seemed incredibly haunting, now that it was silent. Probably without Elizabeth within the rooms, her powers were no longer syphoned? It was as they reached for the heavy twin doors that Booker realized what 'walking out' really meant: _walking_ _out_ meant to pass by those rooms that held pictures of her changing, films of her trying to pick up locks, collection of her stuff…

"Were they…those are photos of _me_!" she muttered heatedly, her gaze settling on the dark chamber just to the side of the now open doors he had pushed aside earlier. "Of me _naked_!" her tone was scandalized, rightfully so too. His blood was still boiling over the entire affair, and her indignation only fueled his own.

The first time around, he had just 'archived' her words on 'they were watching me'. Now however, those words coupled with her actually destroying the various photos made him _feel_. There was something of cathartic he supposed, in watching his daughter tear picture after picture of her, before moving to where the cinema was.

The button on the camera was easily pushed by the girl, and after she watched the bare beginning of the film, she pushed the thing down and actually kicked it.

"I was watched!" she exclaimed, turning to face him. Eleanor tightened her hold on him, probably scared by Elizabeth's outbursts. "They…They were watching me!"

"Yes," he admitted. "We have to go now," he added, turning to leave.

"No, wait."

He stopped and turned for a moment, eying the girl.

"Why did my father do this?" she whispered. "Why did he…why did he have me watched, why did he lock me up in here, why did he…why did he do this?" there was the start of a crack in her voice, as her eyes were bleary with tears.

And the answer was in Booker's mouth before he could even control it. The answer was there, visible as the light of the day and without all that bullshit concerning the 'seed of the prophet' or similar. The answer for all of this was only one.

"He was afraid."

Elizabeth's eyes snapped to his own. "Afraid of what?"

"Of you."

In the silence that followed, Elizabeth's arms hugged herself tightly, her gaze down on the floor as she rocked her body to the right and left gently. She stood there, lost in thought with tears trickling down her chin for what could have been like hours, albeit it was probably only minutes.

By the time she looked back up, she blinked at him once. "Why are you helping me?"

"I help the—"

"Mr. Crow, is the lamb hurt?" Eleanor's voice piped in now, interrupting his words as the girl seemed to be huffing. "Did something scare her? Mr. Crow! You have to protect her too!"

Booker stilled for a second, before a small chuckle escaped his throat. The chuckle was soon followed by a light laugh that resounded in the otherwise silent room.

"Mr. Crow?"

"You heard the missus, Elizabeth," Booker commented. "I have to protect you from the scary things now."

Elizabeth tried to tug her lips up in a smile, but all she managed was a half-forced grin. "I heard her…"

"Now we should go, before Songbird catches us." Booker's voice turned serious as he began to walk, this time being wholeheartedly followed. They had barely stepped outside those dreadful rooms, all with Elizabeth growing more and more silent, when the last bit of ill-planned escape fell into bits.

The gates of Monument Island were being opened, as the members of the police corps slowly began to trickle in after opening the gates. On a smaller hover-boat, the figure of the prophet was apparently inspiring the fanatical guards.

"Find the False Shepard and bring me the Lamb unharmed!" among the numbers of guards pouring in, Booker's eyes narrowed as dread settled in his throat once more. Zealots of the Lady were among those pouring in, and two hard-looking Handymen were looking around with their usual scarred faces. He had fought off waves upon waves of enemies on Comstock's zeppelin…

But that had been when they had trickled in one at the time. Now that they were advancing up the stairs… thankfully they hadn't seen them yet.

"That's the Prophet! Hey mister Prophet! The Lamb is here and she's fine!" Eleanor's voice was met with the dreadful face of both Booker and Elizabeth, as the screaming young girl was soon the undisputed attention of every single man in their proximity, Prophet included.

To his right, Booker saw the singed hole he had created the first time around to enter.

"What is this? Are you the False Shepard, to shield yourself behind a child?" the Prophet intoned, before his eyes snapped on Elizabeth. "Elizabeth! What are you doing outside you foolish child?"

"Father! You were spying on me!" now that was a cracked and angst-filled voice.

"It was for your own safety!" the Prophet rebuffed. "Come here, my child. Bring the girl too, the False Shepard isn't—"

And Booker DeWitt knew what he had to do in that moment.

"There's a hole in the hedgerows to your right, Elizabeth. Go the moment I give you the signal," he whispered that, his eyes locking with those of his daughter who was looking back at him with a mixture of worry and distrust…he just hoped she would obey.

He settled down the girl in front of him, who seemed to squirm as she fought her way free from his arms, before turning to stare at him.

"Mr. Crow?"

"Booker DeWitt!" he screamed then, his right hand pointed at the Prophet. "Do you cherish the deaths you took at Wounded Knee!?"

The Prophet's eyes widened to saucers, or so Booker hoped. He hadn't been filled with bullets then, so maybe he was actually good at this 'lying' and 'theatrics' things. The two of them were the same person: if another-he could pass off as a Prophet, then why couldn't he pass off as one too?

"That name…" the Prophet's voice came through the microphone on his hover-boat. "How do you know that?"

"Booker DeWitt! What have you done with yourself!? Is this how you repay those lives? By bringing more death around you!? Is this the meaning of God to you!? To steal another's man daughter!?" behind him, he saw Elizabeth standing slack-jawed. He was actually talking back to the 'Prophet' a figure that was basically a few steps below God for those around these parts. He gestured with his left hand to her, and she quickly recollected herself before sprinting through the hole.

"You! What are you all standing there for!?" the Prophet turned to his guards who had stilled —the sin of curiosity was the easiest to fall in than all of the others. "Arrest him!"

But it was too late: with a well-timed jump Booker DeWitt jumped through the hole in the hedgerows and began to run forward through the canopy of green. Behind him, the gunshots and loud noises mixed with the cawing of the crows and the screams of Eleanor, whom he had left behind.

He supposed the Prophet wouldn't harm a kid, and having her in front of him…

He felt his throat tighten. He had actually used a kid as a meat-shield.

But now, as he ran while watching Elizabeth's back he realized they were nearing the edge. If he remembered correctly…

The girl stilled at the edge, looking back at him with fright and probably already forming the words 'What now?'

"Wh—" and he simply barreled against her, grabbing her by the waist as they both fell downwards.

Elizabeth screamed.

"_WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!_"

"Trust me! I know what I'm doing!" he screamed back, his left hand extended. The clouds slowly began to drift, as a Sky-Line appeared with its usual glint. "Hold tight!"

And the next instant, they were attached to the rail, the girl tightly gripping him back.

"Don't let me go! Don't let me go! For heaven's sake don't let me go!"

"I've got you, don't worry!" he replied as the Sky-Hook rolled across the Sky-Line acquiring speed. He had begun to breathe easily once more, when a sudden high-pitched scream caught his attention. Why couldn't he remember the entire events? Why did he always have to remember only bits of them!?

"That's Songbird!"

"I know!"

"Do something!"

The giant leather bird screeched as it crashed against a nearby set of freighters, tearing apart the Sky-Line. He closed his mouth, trying to avoiding biting off his tongue, as the creature nearly managed to grasp them from the Rail as they went. Suddenly, the rail lurched by itself, snapping just like the last time.

Differently from the last time, Booker DeWitt used the Murder of Crows to reattach himself on the rail. They passed by the beach as they sped up, the bird hot on their heels. The rail passed extremely close to a stone archway, of what was probably one of the high buildings of Columbia. They barely managed to go through, before Songbird came crashing against it. The Sky-Hook suddenly spluttered, as the inclination of the Sky-Line began to go in the opposite direction.

Instead of fighting it, he swapped the rail.

Songbird passed by them, his gaze looking all the more murderous as it was perplexed.

"So long sucker!" Booker yelled at the bird, the need to laugh at the desperate situation rising up. The giant monster turned its head to them, and by doing that he ignored a hover-boat who had probably moved to check on the ruckus and the damage. The two impacted in a shower of fire, and as Booker's gaze went to where the monster had begun his fall, he gritted his teeth.

It would take more than that to kill the beast, but at least for the moment it would be off-commission.

He finally dropped down in a nearby square, landing roughly as he held Elizabeth tightly to himself. He ended up falling on the ground from the momentum, his back grating against the cobblestone of the plaza as his body finally came to a halt near some greenery. Holding Anna between his arms —the girl's dress a veritable mess of leaves and bits of hedgerows— he took a deep, calming breath.

"We're out," he whispered.

Anna blinked, before looking at him with her big eyes, which looked even bigger since they were so close now. She seemed puzzled for a moment, before she finally relented and spoke.

"Mr. Crow…you are a madman."

And to that, Booker DeWitt chuckled.

It was good to have Elizabeth back.

**Author's notes**

**And this chapter is done!**

**One of the Cut-content is a supply shop and the first 'Song-bird fight' which was inexplicably removed. (Which IS sad: I mean, we 'escape' from Songbird through the Game but…how many times do we actually end up harassed by him? Once? Maybe?) Songbird here will harass and 'hound' the two quite constantly. As it probably was meant to be but never turned out to become.**

**Elizabeth didn't trust Booker in the beginning in the game, but he was a 'gate' for the outside. She probably does have a lot of questions to ask, but with the 'adrenaline' of the escape she didn't find the time.**

**And Booker called Booker out on some stuff. How funny, self-accusation is always the best.**


	7. Understanding the Infinity Problem

Sometimes

Chapter Seven.

Anna didn't weight much in his meager opinion. The fact he was holding her between his arms, the both of them sitting on the patch of grass of the meager flowerbed, was probably a contributing factor to why he actually didn't feel the immediate need to jump to his feet. The girl for her part was breathing heavily, probably recovering from her shock.

His eyes met hers once more, and just for an instant a silent moment passed between the two of them. The moment stopped a second afterwards, as the girl pulled away from him, before quickly scampering to her feet. She was now eying him back with her fully heated glare of distrust. Thankfully there wasn't a wrench nearby, or he was sure she would have already armed herself with it.

"Mr. Crow?" Elizabeth asked, "Where are we now?"

Booker slowly stood up next, looking around with a mixture of perplexity and curiosity. Truth be told, he had no idea. He had acted on instinct, as always, and apparently re-hooking on the Sky-Line had brought them both in a different part of Columbia. One he didn't recognize.

The square held various bed flowers, with small and kitsch flowers sprayed around within them. Quite a hefty bit of cafés littered the area, and from the square two main roads seemingly departed. One did go in the direction of where he had last seen Songbird 'crash' while the other took a tight curve to the right in its ascension.

They couldn't be far from the beach, if the sales announced on the various shop's windows were of any indication. 'Buy an Ice-cream parfait for a pair-fect day at the beach with your loved one!' or 'Packs of Ice, hot deal for cool days' were a few of the things that caught his eyes. Elizabeth on the other hand was still looking at him, ready to bolt if his answer wasn't at all satisfactory…probably.

"We're near the beach," he replied truthfully. "I don't know how close, but close enough."

"Ah," the girl looked around for a moment, before her ears actually seemed to twitch. "I think I hear music!"

She wasn't going again with—

And yet she did, starting to run off towards the source. He mentally cursed as he followed: was the girl really that fearless? They had barely left behind Songbird and already she was heading somewhere else? He followed her as she moved up the cobblestone road, passing by a Salts and a Healer vendor who were peacefully talking to one another.

"Nobody's got a Vigor in them, the risks..." Booker nearly stopped to listen in, but he had an irreversibly curious daughter to catch. The girl sharply took a turn for a seedy alley, and when a small shriek escaped from within it, he suddenly felt the spike of adrenaline settle on him.

He nearly barreled into the girl, who had stopped in front of what seemed like a mountain of cages, left behind. The problem wasn't the pile of rusty iron blocking the passage. It was the hungry looking children within it. They were all dressed with bright colored suits, and with a sickening thought Booker knew that they resembled those monkeys that usually went around asking for change while the musician sung in the circuses.

They even had small metallic plates hanging around their collars that also held a small iron plate with their numbers, rather than their names, in the center of the leather —right below the chin.

Somehow, Booker was glad he hadn't seen this the first time around. Those half-dead gazes, the dark skin that seemed even more sickly looking with the white of the bones actually showing beneath…they held a more tanned look than a dark-one. Maybe they were of Indian descent…

"Mr. Crow?" Elizabeth asked with her eyes warily moving up and down the children within. "Why are they in there?"

"Let's go Elizabeth," he whispered, grabbing her by the arm and giving a sharp tug to bring her away. He didn't want to admit it was him the one who didn't want to see that scene any longer.

_Deliver your rifle!_

"No!" she screamed back, forcing Booker to let go of her as she stared at him with something akin to shock. "Why are they in there? They all look so…so sad."

"Nothing," he replied. "And we can't do a single thing for them now, Elizabeth. We have to go."

She turned to look at him, and then back at the children. Their gazes were so empty; it actually made him shudder too, if but a second.

"I'm not, wait." She grasped at her hairpins, and as she slowly neared the locks Booker's throat constricted. He turned to look at the street, hoping she would quick about it. It took her a few more tries, and as Booker realized the music was indeed growing closer, he couldn't help but wonder why it suddenly felt more _haunting_ and far, far less human.

Where had he heard that strange metallic sound before? It was eerily familiar of something, but he couldn't place it.

"I'm done," Elizabeth said, opening wide one of the cages. He turned around to look at her and something finally snapped just as the music stilled. He knew where those ghostly notes and tunes came from. He had heard them once before.

He anxiously gulped as the first of the dark-skinned boys took a small step outside, before quickly returning inside.

"Why aren't they leaving?" Elizabeth whispered, "Don't you want to come out?"

They didn't answer. Booker took a deep breath. He could hear the distinctive metal respiration of a small boy behind him. The horn helmet that completely covered his face amplified the sounds he made, which was rich in irony considering they were called the Boys of Silence.

It took him a second, to realize that Elizabeth had turned to look at him with sadness in her eyes.

"Why aren't they leaving? Why are they…staying?"

"That's all they know, Elizabeth." He murmured those words as he slowly took out his Pistol. The girl's eyes widened, as her body somehow moved to protect the children behind her.

"You're not going to kill them!"

Leave it to Elizabeth to know what a gun was, and to of course misunderstand the situation. Booker's left hand gestured for something behind him, and at the girl's puzzled frown he answered by spinning around with his Sky-Hook twirling.

He hit the air behind him.

He breathed slowly as sweat descended down his forehead —it wasn't the warm type of sweat, but the cold unsettling one that usually accompanied something bad on the verge of happening. That feeling made him turn around slowly; he came face to face with the perplexed expression of Elizabeth…and the cages filled with _monkeys_, not human children.

"Mr. Crow, are you all right?"

"Y-Yeah," he shakily whispered. "I'm all right."

Elizabeth followed him out of the dirty alley a second later, and the moment he was back in the pristine and white streets of Columbia, Booker actually breathed easier. He needed a drink, a stiff one.

"Mr. Crow, can I ask you a question?" the girl whispered, as she settled on walking next to him.

"Yes, ask away." Anything to forget what he had seen, or apparently had _not_ seen.

"Why did you call the Prophet Booker DeWitt?"

He coughed slightly. "It's his real name."

"He's not called Zacharias?"

"No…" he didn't want to say more about it, and considering how the girl seemed already puzzled about this revelation, then maybe—

"Why did you yell at him for having stolen another's baby?"

Of course the girl had to remember everything. He always forgot how smart she actually was. She had to have taken the brains from her mother, because he certainly hadn't been the sharpest tool in the shed. He hadn't even remained through all the years of school, preferring to enter the army young and start working at the Pinkertons.

"I said that?"

"Yes, Mr. Crow, you did." Elizabeth was still looking at him, and he could actually feel her stare on the side of his face as they walked next to shops that once, the first time around, had actually caught the girl's interest. Now of course she was keener on getting the truth out of him.

The music seemed to grow, as they finally reached the wooden stairs that would undoubtedly bring them down towards the sandy beach. The music was now hanging in the air, the same happy music she had heard the first time. Only she didn't care about the music. She was looking at him and waiting for an answer, her arms crossed in front of her chest.

What could he say?

"He…he isn't your real father," he finally whispered, "Because your real father paid me to get you out of here."

She narrowed her eyes for a moment, and Booker felt himself undergoing some sort of secret scrutiny he wasn't privy of, before she began to hesitantly tap with her right foot on the ground. It took him a moment to realize she was tapping it to the music going down in the beach, and so he took the cue…and the easy way out.

"Do you want to dance?" he asked gesturing with his right hand to where the open orchestra was playing their music. Her eyes actually lit up with amusement as she cracked a smile. She actually grasped his hand as she sped up towards the wooden pier that gave on the fake sea. The circle of dancers gave way for them to enter the simple yet happy dance, and as Elizabeth smiled and laughed…

A terrible sense of guilt settled over him.

Still, he felt happy as he helped Anna do a _pirouette_ and then cross his arm with hers in some country-song he had never heard before. It was nice. Yet the guilt was there.

He frowned, trying to remember just what he had to feel guilty about. He shuddered to a halt a second afterwards, blearily closing his eyes as the crushing sensation passed over him.

"Mr. Crow?" Elizabeth whispered with a slight worry in her voice.

"You're bleeding."

His fingers went to his nose, and when he opened his eyes again he could see the crimson droplets already start to form.

That…

That didn't make sense.

"I'm fine," he whispered. He wasn't, and probably Anna had caught on it too, but she still said nothing as they left the circle of dancing men.

"It's the first time I'm outside!" she conspiratorially told him, her feet every now and then kicking some of the sand around. "Did you smell that? I never smelled something like that before!"

"The beach does smell a bit too much," of primroses and flower scents. He actually wondered how the workers in the boiler room managed to survive such a prim smell for the entire day. He would go mad before the end of an hour.

They passed through the turnstile, his gaze settling itself on one of the portraits of Comstock. How blind had he been? Removing the beard and coloring the hair black…it was Booker DeWitt who stared back at you, not the Prophet Zacharias Comstock.

Hindsight _truly_ was twenty-twenty.

He ignored the piercing gaze of the piece of paper, walking upstairs to reach the upper level of the beach once more.

"I think I found something for you," he blinked as he stared at the medic kit that Anna had apparently scavenged from a corner, holding it out right in front of his nose. Her look seemed so much like that of a puppy that he was fighting off his desire to hug her again. If it was because she disliked seeing people hurt, or because she was falling into some sort of savior complex mode, he didn't know. The last time around she had offered to find him something to ease the pain, but this time…

Why was there something different?

He studied the girl's hands, so delicate in offering him…

He blinked.

Five fingers per hand.

Ten fingers in all.

No missing phalanx, no 'peas in porridge'.

But the Syphon had—

"Mr. Crow?"

"Oh? Oh yeah, yes." He grasped the medic kit, opening it to grab the painkillers and the morphine, before tossing away the useless stuff like flu or cold medicine.

"Hold on to the gauze and the bandages," he commented dropping the stuff in her hands, which she deftly caught. His mind was trying to understand what was going on, when the sight of two very familiar people came into view a moment later.

Differently from usual, the two weren't holding two chokers to show…

The two were _bickering_ one against the other.

"I've had enough of your meddling Rosalind! We have to—"

"Robert! You cannot be serious, please understand that—"

"No, Rosalind. It is a no!" the man spun on its heels, before disappearing from sight behind a column, never to appear again from the other side. Booker slowly walked forward, Elizabeth following him as they neared the woman, Rosalind. The woman seemed to be in the midst of clasping her hands together, and at the same time make her fingers open and close with small cracks. She was nervously looking around, and to Booker, she looked like a kid who had lost his mother.

"Robert…" she mumbled, in a pleading tone that actually tugged at his heartstrings. It was a moment, and then the woman recollected herself.

"Heads, or tails?" she asked, eying him calmly.

"What was that about?" he asked back, as Anna watched the exchange he was having with a perplexed face.

"Nothing, Mr. _Crow_," Rosalind actually stressed his fake surname. Booker tensed at that, was the woman really so keen on not answering his question? "Now, Heads or Tails?"

He grasped a silver eagle from his pockets, launched it in the air and caught it, before giving it a glance. It showed Heads.

"Tails," he answered back.

The woman nodded briskly, before taking out a small wooden box from _somewhere_ behind her. "Here, for the girl."

Booker held the box —which seemed quite heavy for something containing the pin for a choker. His eyes went for the briefest of instants down to gaze at the letters etched on the surface and he nearly choked on his saliva when he realized what the inscription meant.

_A.D._

Anna DeWitt.

He calmly handed it over to the girl, who perplexedly opened it.

"Is this a…gift, for me, Mr. Crow?" the girl replied as she took out what seemed to be a wrench.

A tiny silver wrench attached to a silver necklace. He didn't know why the thing felt familiar, or why it seemed so right on Elizabeth's neck. What he did know was that Elizabeth's eyes lit up in surprise.

"This is wonderful!" she exclaimed, putting it on. "Oh! I know what this is!"

He cocked his head to the side, watching the amused face of the girl lit up like a baby on Christmas morning.

"What is it?" he asked then.

"It's a Nostrum. It's one of the inventions of Rosalind Lutece. They react to the energy released by the Vigors within one's body and morph it to different wavelength so as to alter the quantum molecules that—"

"Yeah, yeah…but what does that particular one do?" he asked gritting his teeth in frustration.

"I don't know," Anna replied blinking. "I mean…I never had one before, but I don't have any Vigors in me, so I don't have any Salts either."

He frowned at that bit, but decided to let it go. He wondered what the syphon was about, if the girl couldn't open tears. Maybe she actually could open them, and the missing digit wasn't required?

Still, what had happened to make this Anna not lose a digit?

He remembered the night. He had run to stop Comstock, but he had only managed in delaying him long enough for the Tear to start closing. That was when Elizabeth had lost her pinky finger's phalanx.

So if she had it…

Then it meant that the Booker DeWitt of this 'reality' never went back to save her.

No, the Booker DeWitt charged with saving the girl never went into this dimension to begin with.

The thought pierced through his brain like a hot sword through butter. That was the problem. There were Infinite Bookers and Infinite Annas. He was…

He was saving one, in that moment, but was he the father of this one?

She wasn't missing her pinky finger.

So the answer was both Yes and No.

The Perspective. The Understanding.

He understood.

And for once, he wished he didn't as he began to choke back the bitter tears that were menacing to come out from his eyes. He was saving a girl who undoubtedly was, and at the same time wasn't, his daughter.

So that was what Robert meant, with 'telling him when he understood'.

He understood all right. He understood loud and clear.

"We have to go," he muttered. Even if this girl wasn't his…wasn't his Anna, it was still another's Booker one.

He truly needed a stiff drink, after this.

Of course, the only thing hanging around was cotton candy and apples, and if memory served him correctly, he wouldn't have anything remotely alcoholic to drink for hours.

God, how he hated _understanding_.

**Author's notes**

**Ignorance is Bliss. **

**Yeah. This little tid-bit of 'Fridge Horror' is brought to you by 'We know Booker goes and Saves Elizabeth, realizing it's his daughter'. The question is: is it actually 'his' aka the protagonist daughter, or is it that of a 'Booker' from another reality? And if it was the latter, would Booker still wish to save her?**

**Well…he'll need a stiff drink after this.**

**And Rosalind made it known in a Voxophone that without Robert she'd be lost. Kind of like Puppy-dog lost. So yeah, it fits.**

**Of course Robert knew that by making Booker understand the entire thing went Haywire, which is why he 'snaps' and leaves Rosalind alone.**

**Q&A**

**Dad-Daughter fluff: it will come around, but further down the road.**

**' ' will remain for a few chapters too. Eventually Elizabeth will ask his name. 'I'm Andrew, Andrew Ryan' is something I'm very tempted to put as a fake name. XD (Joking, you will see)**

**For Elizabeth's ancestry: I found that a bit strange. I mean, the prophet did say he was 'grooming' her...why not tell her from the beginning? And even if he didn't, there probably were more than enough books going around that library of hers that would have told her. **

**On Vigors:**

**It is a Headscratching question posed on Tvtropes. There are many variables and theories behind why 'not everyone' has one. I planned mine. I gave quite a bit of hints on why along this chapter, which makes for bitter pills to digest...but I'm a sucker for happy endings, so worry not.**

**Maybe.**


	8. The Power of a Name

Sometimes

Chapter Eight.

It shouldn't have mattered. Really, Booker understood that it shouldn't have mattered. As Anna was picking the lock, both of them ignoring the words of the drunken man in the corner, he knew it shouldn't have mattered. Yet it did.

It mattered. This _was_ Anna, but it wasn't _his_ Anna.

His Anna was missing the last phalanx of her pinkie finger. His Anna…

Hadn't he already lost her once?

Wait, what were the words Rosalind had told him before?

_And even then, you cannot actually go back in time. Tears don't work that way. Sure, you can travel through dimensions, maybe to a dimension where time is behind or ahead of events…but not actually go back in time from your original dimension._

'His' Anna was already lost. He had seen it in the old looking woman who Comstock had successfully brainwashed. He had just refused to _think_ about it. This reminded him of that time with that psychiatric professor, that bespectacled old man with a white goatee who had kept on asking him questions about Wounded Knee.

He had paid the man quite a bit, taken his first loan just to talk with him for a few hours…

And in the end he had learned only one thing: the brain does what it can to remove anything that brings discomfort. Traumatic events are removed, lies become reality, and in the end trying to repress those feelings and emotions only make them bottle up, ready to explode at the slightest shake.

He had already lost his Anna. If it hadn't been with the girl drowning him…the girls.

The Girls. Plural. Not one Anna, more than one. All those…of the dimensions he had travelled through. The one with the living Mr. Chen, with him dead, with the weapons to the Vox. Anna…his Anna had existed across the dimensions, maybe sharing everything with the other Annas she had ended up with?

That would explain why there was not another 'Anna' or 'DeWitt' going around when they hopped through dimension. It wasn't the 'wishful' thinking. The original ones were merely placed 'on hold' somewhere else. Like with a phone call…you couldn't occupy the line with more than two phones, one of the two _had_ to be put on hold.

This girl, who looked like her, talked like her, and that was without a doubt her still wasn't _his_ Anna.

He was stealing another's Booker daughter. If that was the case however, then where was the real Booker _held_? Was he dead in an alley? Drunk into oblivion somewhere? Killed by the debts collector? In prison? There was no missing phalanx. He hadn't gone back to save the girl.

His other self hadn't tried to stop Comstock. He had let him go.

The Booker the girl had been stolen from didn't want this Anna.

He supposed…

He supposed he could be this girl's father after all. If her own father was so _blind_ as to not seek the girl, then nobody would be hurt. They'd go to Paris together, and that would be it.

"You're awfully silent Mr. Crow," Elizabeth remarked as they walked through the empty rooms of what looked like offices. He absent-mindedly was opening the desks and the drawers, even looking in the trashcans for the few bits of sparse money hanging around. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that the Columbia citizen either had a sweet tooth, an alcohol problem or actually lost their money pretty easily.

Somehow, Elizabeth had a keener eye than him, because she always did come up with money he hadn't seen in his own walking.

"Just thinking," he replied.

"Come over! Come over and buy!" the machine-voice of the seller enticed him, as Anna's voice piped in.

"What is that thing?" she was in awe as she neared it, "Mr. Crow! Look at this! It moves, and talks! Hello there!"

"That's a machine," he retorted calmly, browsing the goods. He was low on salts…but he would have hoped for a Whiskey.

"Does it work with these?" Anna hesitantly brought her cupped hands forward, taking out from somewhere on her body —he was pretty sure she had some sort of giant pocket on her dress— a small fortune in coins.

"How did you—"

"You were lost in thoughts, so I started looking around…"

He frowned, before counting the small pile. There were larger coins, valuing as much as Fifty Silver Eagles, and small ones no more than One, Two or Five.

"Four hundred fifty-one Silver Eagles," he muttered. "How in the name of…"

He actually supposed the Columbia's tailors made really loose pockets, the janitors were lousy cleaners and somehow Anna was a truffle dog hidden beneath a woman's skin.

Even then, this was a small fortune.

"It's more than enough," he finally admitted, closing his hanging jaw as he turned to insert the coins within the machine. He pushed a button, and from the machine popped down a small vial with a crystal blue liquid. He winced as he drank the salt concentrate. The taste was 'salty' to say the least. It also smelled like foul medicine and had the same consistency of sand.

"All right," he muttered.

"Mr. Crow," Elizabeth asked him, her lower lip bitten in nervousness. "Can you describe my dad?"

He blinked.

His eyes travelled a bit down the corridor. There, standing on the table, was a bottle of Gin.

He calmly moved to the bottle and uncorked it.

He had forgotten it was there the first time around, probably. Booker raised his right hand to 'halt' any words coming from the girl's mouth, before taking a long gulp from the alcohol. It burned through his tongue as he felt it land in his stomach.

"Ah…" he sighed in relief as he felt the warmth and the burning sensation hit him. That hit the spot. Truly, that long sip hit the spot. With practiced motion, he threw the rest of the bottle away, letting it smash against the floor further down. They would take the turn to the left instead, so it didn't matter.

It was a reflexive move: if he took a sip and then broke the bottle, there was no way he would take a second one. It would also make sure he didn't lose completely his senses…and that was a good thing.

He walked through the corridor, ignoring the calls of Elizabeth to stop and answer her.

"Mr. Crow!" she snapped at him angrily, "Answer me!"

He opened the doors to the Duke and Dimwit playroom quickly, entering the hall where parents and children were happily playing. The girl stilled once she reached the threshold, probably not wanting to make a fuss in public, or probably shocked by the amount of things she didn't know the existence of.

She hesitantly walked in, after realizing that nothing was actually out there to kill her.

He let his eyes travel around. Strange…he was supposed to receive a package from Mister Fink. Of course the next instant Booker realized the man probably had no reason to: he hadn't gone to the raffle, he had kept himself quiet and as far away from the public light as possible…which meant there just was no way the industrial would know of him.

"Mr. Crow! Telegram for Mr. Crow!" a young boy's voice rang to his side, as he turned to stare at the boy.

A boy who seemed to be holding a cursive hand-written letter. He nodded to the boy, grabbing the envelope, but when his eyes returned up, the boy was nowhere to be seen.

_DEWITT STOP. STOP. DO NOT CONTINUE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT. STOP. ABORT MISSION. STOP. LEAVE ANNA. STOP. SIGNED: ROBERT LUTECE. STOP._

He calmly shredded the telegram.

Wait. Hadn't it been a cursive hand-written letter?

He returned to look at the now shredded bits of paper. There was a cursive handwriting now on the pages. He blearily closed his eyes and opened them up again. Yes, whatever it was, it was now probably unreadable no matter what he tried.

He pushed the torn scraps of paper into the nearest bin, before walking towards the airship. As he did, he was flanked a second later by Elizabeth, who was holding a stick of cotton candy in her hand. The last time around he hadn't stopped much around the area, but this time…this time apparently the girl had found something to do.

"It's really good!" she exclaimed. "And I'm not giving you any, Mr. Crow."

"I don't like sweets."

"That explains why you're so grumpy and your sour looks."

"I don't have sour looks," he replied calmly, not even feigning an affronted tone.

Anna shot him a 'you really believe that?' gaze, before walking upstairs with him.

"Annabelle?" a female voice, so familiar to him called the girl. A woman with blond hair dressed in a grey suit called for Anna, and just as the girl was about to retort, Booker smiled and clamped a hand hard on Elizabeth's shoulder.

"This here is Mary, madam. Sorry, but we have to go or we'll lose the last ride." Quickly, he pushed the now completely befuddled girl through the second turn turnstile.

"MR—"

"Quiet." He hissed out clamping both of his hands on the girl's shoulder. One of the policemen on the other side made to move from his corner, but he showed the man a glare and showed the Crow's sword.

The policeman stiffened and then nodded, before returning to his position.

Nice, he could 'abuse' the authority of the Crows now. Wonderful.

"Mr. Crow," Anna's voice was now pleading and scared, as he kept on pushing her upstairs, past the shoe-cleaning guy and the sweeping-the-floor guy.

"She was a spy for Comstock," he whispered in her ear. "Your real name would have ticked her off."

He then stopped pushing her hard once they were in front of the hall for the tickets. "Now listen to me," he spun her around, so that her face was bare inches away from his. "I know this might sound strange, all right? But I _know_ what I'm doing. I need you to trust me, no matter what."

"You're not actually easy to trust with what you're doing, Mr. Crow…you know my name, but I don't even know yours," Elizabeth snapped back, her face pale.

"Does it matter?" he softly said. "Does it matter who I am, as long as I get you to Paris?"

"Mr. Crow…" Anna whispered, "I know being locked since I was born in a tower, watched all day, makes me ignorant of the world…but I'm not an idiot. You say you work for my father, and my father is in Paris? That's too good to be true, Mr. Crow. Then again, you are too good to be true too."

She actually averted her gaze, a light blush coloring her cheeks as she said that.

His own eyes widened. "What?" he whispered, his breath caught in his throat.

"I mean…you _saved_ me from my cage, we _escaped_ from Songbird…" the girl added. "I just…I want to be sure this isn't a hallucination, because if I have snapped, then at least I can start preparing myself for when I'll go back to reality. I can't stand it anymore, the thought of being back there…and…"

"Anna, look at me," he said, his right hand grasping her chin. "You will not be going back in there, not as long as I draw breath, not as long as I'm alive." _No matter what Anna you are or what Booker I'm taking the place of._

Her eyes widened for a moment, before she numbly nodded.

Booker let Anna go, turning to move towards the ticket booth. In that instant, he saw the man already at the phone, making a call to what he knew was the police, just as the fake hot-dog vendor slowly walked behind them.

Elizabeth followed him with a perplexed gaze, and then stopped in the middle of the hall.

He took out his pistol without even bothering to talk to the man. He knew they had been surrounded after all.

"Mr. Crow? What did you call me Anna?"

Booker froze for an instant, but then he said, while looking at the paling man on the phone in front of him.

"Because that's your real name!"

And then the Broadside fired the bullet, and the man-on-the-phone was no more.

The next instant, of course, was chaos.

"MISTER CROW! AHHH!" Elizabeth screamed at the gory scene, but Booker didn't even look fazed.

When preparing an ambush, there was one thing against which the enemy was weak: knowing of it beforehand. And Booker not only knew of it, but he knew who the 'trouble' was and where it was. The first time, he had hesitated, letting Anna slip past him and losing her for precious seconds. This time around, he did not even blink as he fired a second shot of his pistol straight in the head of the fake Hot-Dog seller that had tried to 'manhandle' Elizabeth.

He swapped with the shotgun, sending his Devil's Kiss grenade to crash against the blond woman in the grey suit. The woman burned as she screamed for her very life. He didn't aim the shotgun at her head however, instead letting the aim go to where a baton-wielding cop was coming close on him.

The trigger was pulled, and a pacifier of Columbia lost its head to the rose of pellets, falling on the ground with only his lower jaw remaining.

"Well!? Is this all you can do you damn fuckers!? I had better fights with nursery kids!" he loaded a cartridge by reflex, since one of the basic laws was 'always keep the gun charged' for him. He let the Murder of Crows enter his thoughts, as he aimed at the shotgun wielding enemy who was now pointing at him.

He transformed in the flock of ravens, avoiding the pellets of lead that passed through him without damage. His own 'murder' tore through the man's body, and when he appeared on the other side, shotgun aimed at the enemy's head, he didn't even wince as he tore apart the policeman's face.

This didn't even faze him any longer. He lowered the shotgun as he neared Elizabeth with quick and fast steps.

"Get away from me!" even as the girl screamed, Booker didn't stop. He grasped the girl by the arm, and as she began to hit him, he held her tighter and pulled her body against his to keep a hold on her.

"Let me go! Let me go!" she screamed and shrieked. He didn't.

Even as the police's sirens began to be heard in the distance, he didn't.

"_We_ have to go," he told her, his voice loud enough to be heard above her tears. "Do you want to go back in the tower, Elizabeth!?"

"No, no…no!" the girl's head shook hard, as she finally seemed to calm down enough.

"Good, then let's go." He gave a final look at the charred body of the woman he had killed with the grenade. He knew her name.

Esther Mailer had a Voxophone in the room where the policemen were ready to emerge from, and who yet hadn't. He suspected it was because he hadn't given the time to the man to pull down the metallic grates, and had shot him dead beforehand. Just like he had killed all the fake civilians within a span of seconds. Probably the men behind the wooden doors believed the fight to be over.

"You killed those people," Elizabeth whispered in fear as she followed behind him. "I can't believe you did that…" she shook her head as her arms went to wrap around herself. "They're all dead."

He turned his gaze to the doors of the Columbia police office, who were now opening.

"You killed those people!" the girl screamed at him. Then she blinked as she saw him charging the Devil's Kiss grenade.

"Not enough," he muttered, as the ball of fire flew from his hand, crashing against the chest of a baton-wielding guard. Booker saw the man's face, he saw his eyes widen in shock and blood drain from his face at the sight of fire sphere collide with his chest. He saw the scream form on the face of the Columbian policeman…and then all that remained was the white of the bones, as the skeleton crashed on the floor in a bone heap.

"Get behind me, keep going," he snarled to the girl who stood there, transfixed on the spot as if somebody had frozen her over.

"Move it Elizabeth!" he screamed practically on her face, as a few of the policeman began to fire back with their machineguns, the bullet wheezing near them as he grasped the girl by the arm again, pulling her and then throwing her behind a corner.

He felt a sharp bout of pain as a bullet pierced his shoulder, but instead of letting out a cry of pain, he roared in anger as he returned fire with the shotgun.

Once the last bullet in the chambers was over, he swapped the pistol.

"Get going Elizabeth!"

The girl finally moved, running upstairs, and to where the transport was.

Booker gritted his teeth as he took aim carefully. One of the guards peered over his cover.

He fired a single shot.

The head exploded.

"One down."

One of them charged at him from the side of the double doors, wooden baton in hand. Two shots to the chest downed the man.

He grabbed from his breast pocket one of the painkiller pills, gulping it down before returning to aim down the iron sights of his Broadside.

He breathed in and out calmly, before the third man appeared, still wearing the civilian outfit.

One last shot flew from the tip of his gun, hitting the man in the right arm. The man fell on the ground, grunting in pain as he held his limb.

"Bring this message to the Prophet! I know who he is and what he has done! I am the reckoning of his misdeeds! Tell him that for the sins he committed, no punishment will ever be too great!"

Finally, he turned to leave.

"False…Shepard…" the bleeding man hissed out between gasps of pain. "Your words are hollow, in the grace of the god…"

"And your prophet is a liar, and a cold-blooded murderer. Ask him who truly killed Lady Comstock, and stare in his eyes as he answers you with lies."

Then he left, walking up the stairs that led him outside, to where the barge-on-rails was. As he stepped over, he could see Elizabeth huddled in a corner of the pilot's room. If 'pilot' could be the mere pushing of a lever. Her face was pressed against her legs, her arms circling her knees as she stood there as the splitting image of misery and sadness.

He neared the lever, only for the girl to gasp and look at him with fright.

"Why?" she whispered, her voice a choked sob. "Why kill them?"

"They would have killed us instead," he replied as he pushed the lever with all his strength, the barge starting to move.

"Listen…" he tried to be soothing in his tone as he spoke, albeit he was probably unable to. "Think about the extent the people went through to keep you locked in the tower," he began as he recalled the last time this argument had happened. "You can't expect them to just…let you go: you're an investment to them."

"But the man wasn't even—"

"The man was talking to the police," he retorted. "Just like the woman was a spy."

"How do you know that? You just shot the man in the face!" she exclaimed right back at him.

"He was talking to the other guards! Should I have let him hold us off? Didn't you see the others taking out their guns?"

"Oh yeah, because you already _killed a man in front of them!_" she screamed back.

"There was no avoiding it!"

"How do you know that!? _You just upped and shot him in the face_!"

"One thing I learned is that if you don't draw first, sometimes you don't get to draw at all!"

_Deliver your rifle!_

_Sir! He's taking aim!_

_Deliver your—_

_Fire. Guns. Bullets. Chaos. Cannons. Shots. Shoot Booker. Shoot._

_Kill Booker._

_Kill them all._

He held his head with his right hand, as he let out a sharp cry of pain.

"Mr. Crow!?"

"No," he shook his head. "No. I'm…I'm not at fault. If you don't draw first, they can kill you."

"All right," Anna whispered. "It's all right Mr. Crow," she added, slowly moving to actually hug his head. She pressed his face against her right shoulder, holding him there as she hummed nicely, while his headache receded.

She gently caressed his hair, playing with one of his locks as she kept on humming. The headache receded slowly, leaving him to breathe in slowly the smell of his daughter's perfume. It was the smell of that clean and fresh soap used to wash clothes, mixed with a light bit of sweat, probably from cold fear.

He took a final deep breath, before slowly letting go.

Anna was looking at him with worry in her eyes, but she chose not to speak. Instead, she dried her tears and then winced, as she saw that her left hand was slightly covered in blood. His blood probably, the one gushing out from his shoulder wound.

"Come here," she whispered, a handkerchief somehow in her hand. "You're bleeding."

That…That was familiar.

"What happened back there…that's not the last of it, is it?" she said, her eyes looking at him for confirmation.

He remembered the following days. The deaths, the screams, the blood, the bullets and the enemies always growing stronger and stronger with time, as Comstock's patience grew thin. He remembered all of it…and he knew it wouldn't be enough to just answer with the 'I don't know'.

Because he knew.

He understood and he knew.

And knowledge…knowledge was power, wasn't it?

"Not by a long shot," he grimaced. "Not by a very, very long shot."

"I suppose I best get used to it then," she answered back. "Well, at least I read something on medicine. I can help you if you get wounded."

"Thanks," he answered back, remembering all those times a well-placed remedy actually had saved him from death. "I'm…I'm grateful. Even if…if I don't show it, I'm glad you're on my side."

And then he turned to leave.

In so doing, he missed the look of complete shock and surprise that was now etched on the girl's face, which was then followed by a light blush and a slight lopsided smile.

"So," the girl suddenly asked as she followed him out of the barge, who had reached the end of the rail. "My real name is Anna, Mr. Crow?"

Booker winced and then grimly nodded.

"What's your name then?"

"Uh?"

"Your name. 'Mr. Crow' isn't your name, right?"

"Eh…"

"It's unfair," she pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. "You know everything about me, even my real name. I know nothing of you."

"I'm… My name's not important."

"Yes, it is," she whispered softly, so low that he nearly missed that. "If it's a dream, I'd like to remember the name of the hero."

"I'm no-one's hero," he snapped back, maybe a bit harder than it was needed. "Really, Anna…I am no-one's hero. Comstock's a saint compared to what I've done…" he trailed off, this wasn't the time.

"I find that hard to believe," Anna snorted. "Do you have a girl trapped somewhere in a tower? Guarded by a mechanical bird?"

He had.

Well…Zacharias had, and Zacharias was him just as he was the Prophet.

Was it even possible, that just dipping the head beneath the water could force such drastic changes? It simply seemed so much…strange.

Water could not erase a man's sins. To think otherwise was foolish, nothing more than a madman's thought.

"Mr. Crow? Please answer my question."

They stood now just outside the Eagle Welcoming Center and as his gaze went to the girl once more, he clenched his fists before answering back.

"My name is—"

And the blaring scream of Songbird interrupted his next words, as the monster of leather and steel screeched its terrifying song as it began a dive bomb towards them.

This was new.

He was starting to hate surprises.

**Author's notes**

**Chapter's done.**

**Well, Booker is slightly more theatrical now. He's using/abusing his knowledge of events…and you know what they say about want of a nail things…**

**But worry not! 'Mr. Crow' calling is nearing its end. **

**At the same time, is that a crush we see on Elizabeth's face? I'm sure it's going to be well into the awkward level when the truth comes out!**

**And Cliff-Hanger. Evil Cliff-Hanger. **

**And well, it will be a **_**crushing**_** experience for Booker. See how **_**crunchy**_** Booker's going to be after mallet-Songbird is done with him?**

**If you wonder why Booker is 'head-aching' read the events of Wounded Knee. I mean, the line 'draw first or you don't get to draw at all' smells of something bad happening there. (And the battle itself was actually a massacre on civilian Indian forces and a few armed Indians who refused to hand over their acquired rifles)**

**Elizabeth is, to describe her in a few words, 'kind-naïve-fighting spirit' girl. She's not scared for long of things, and once the scare is over…**

**Rawr.**

…**(currently imagining tiger-cosplay dressed Elizabeth. Bad imagination, bad.)**


	9. The Creeping Choice

Sometimes

Chapter Nine

Songbird crashed with his fist where a second before Booker had been.

The avian beast of leather tore apart a good chunk of the wooden platform, making the entire construction tremble.

"Mr. Crow!"

"Go past the turnstile!" he screamed at Anna, "I'll meet you on the other side!"

"But—"

"Trust me!" at his scream, the girl obeyed. He saw her back one last time, and then Songbird flew back up, his murderous gaze displaying the red light he had seen but very few times. Somehow, he suspected he would have to grow accustomed to that eerie light this time around. The last of the metal bars that stuck out of the pavement gave away, making the large chunk of floor fall downwards.

As Booker fell, he turned to look behind him. To his surprise, Songbird was actually pursuing him, right claw extended. The inhuman screech the creature held ringed in his ears, as he felt the Sky-Hook twitch. He spun around quickly in mid-air, extending the hook as it caught one of the Sky-Lines that seemingly ran all across the lower part of Columbia as a final 'safety net' of sort.

He had fallen down once, and one of said rails had appeared as if by magic to save his life. It was probably a planned feature of the city: just jump off attempting suicide and get yourself home in less than five minutes. The hook attached itself to the rail, and as Booker screamed from the pain the momentum brought to his shoulder, he still held on as he sailed in the air.

The next moment, his eyes went wide at the sight of a freighter coming in his direction. To his lower left, half-hidden by the clouds, was another Sky-Rail. He swung in the air, detaching and then reattaching himself to the other one —acquiring, if possible, even more speed in the process.

The railway began to rise, as behind him Songbird was gaining ground on him. He spun around with his Broadside in hand, as he slowly took aim for the bird's massive body. Of course, the bullets just pelted off the leathery cover, as if some sort of shield protected him from harm. It resembled so much the Return to Sender Vigor, yet at the same time…it looked like the Shield thing he had drunk.

One of the bird's claws made a swipe for him, forcing him to let go of the rail and move to the other one. The Hook spluttered as it found itself under the strain of going in the opposite direction, and the next instant…

The next instant, the Hook's blades broke into hundreds of pieces, as the magnetized equipment gave way. Booker watched, as if time had stilled, as his arm lowered itself while gravity claimed him…and he fell. He screamed as he fell downwards, towards the clouds and beyond them. Passing through them was like being chilled by an extreme cold set of water, the white substance doing nothing to stop his fall past them.

He was going to die.

He was going to die and Anna was going to be captured again.

He didn't want to die.

He had to save Anna. He couldn't, he just couldn't…

And then a rooftop met his body.

He crashed through the wooden roof, through the last floor, and finally he landed in what looked like an extremely soft current of air. One that held him in mid-air rather than crash him all the way to the ground. Booker could feel his entire body wince in pain, his chest hurting as he breathed and his arms hanging loosely at his sides. Had he broken them during the crash?

He coughed out blood, as just as suddenly as he had been caught in mid-air, he fell on the ground hard. A carpeted ground of white fur was the first thing he saw, before being pulled back upwards by the same current that had stopped his fall.

Around him, he could see tesla coils spark and charge what seemed like the head of a horse, which at regular intervals emitted a strong shriek. Bucking Bronco, the name came to his lips as he was dropped on the ground again. Was this a testing facility?

He rolled on his back, away from the 'aim' of the bronze horse head, and took another shaky breath. On the ceiling, he could see the holes that he had made in falling down. His Shield had probably saved him from immediate death, but his luck…his luck had probably all been used to save him in finding such a place. He chuckled as the adrenaline faded away, leaving him wheezing and panting as he tried to get on his feet.

He needed something to set his bones, and something to remove the pain.

The room he was in held a table, in the far corner, next to a well-stocked bookshelf. A Voxophone glinted on the surface, as well as the Bucking Bronco Vigor. Next to the shelf was a ladder that seemingly led upwards to a second level of this 'library' if this area could be called as such.

On the walls were pictures of the three Founders, all holding their key-items. Washington with the flaming sword passed the Delaware. Edison held his golden key and winked at the viewer, as he seemed to be putting it in a painted safe's keyhole. The book of Jefferson was a bible opened on a psalm, which read in clear words.

_Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil._

_That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die._

The first passage was vaguely familiar of the Bible, but the second left him with a chill in his soul and no ideas, especially because the second one had been written by hand, and with what seemed like blood. He slowly wobbled out of the way, towards the table. The Vigor would do him good, and he hoped he would find another Sky-Hook soon.

As he drank the tonic, he pushed the button on the Voxophone. The grating noise came to him as unnerving, but that was soon followed by a man's voice.

_I know this might sound…strange, but I fear I am not alone in here. I can hear the heartbeat. I heard them speak of ancient gods and demons beyond imagination, things that drive a man mad by only watching at them. Names so diabolical that uttering them can surely bring forth demons of old…_

The tape seemed scratched, as if some static had passed through it.

_Did you hear that? Calm down…there's nothing in here with me._

The soft sound of piano notes sprang from the Voxophone, before the tape came to an abrupt halt. Booker frowned, but left the Voxophone on the surface and walked as he could to the stairs. He knew this would hurt. He fumbled with his fingers for his belt, from where he removed the morphine.

An instant later, and the pain was just a fleeting memory. He chuckled to himself as he climbed the ladder. On the wooden upper-level, he saw a mahogany door slightly ajar. There were drops of blood on the floor, and all happiness left him as he read the message scrawled on the sides of the corridor.

_If you gaze in the abyss, they gaze back at you!_

_Hear them scream, and they'll hear you too!_

_Oh god. God almighty, bless my soul for—_

Booker wasn't a believer of strange horrors. He had seen what the Vox could do to people it hated, and he knew that theatrics weren't meant for them. Still, he held the Bucking Bronco Vigor ready. If something tried to pounce at him, he would make him float.

He slowly walked to the door, the wood creaking under his steps. A bottle of beer was in the corner, half-filled and the other half already pooling on the ground. He ignored it in favor of carefully opening the door. What stood in the middle of the corridor was a scene that iced his blood.

There was a hand. Torn from the limb itself with a bit of bone still attached. It was pinned to the wall, a normal wood wall with a flower-motif as wallpaper. Two closed doors stood on either sides of the limb, as the corridor instead seemed to end with a descending stairway.

Beneath the hand, a Voxophone stood. He pushed the button of the play without a second thought, carefully grasping at his Shotgun and making sure it was loaded.

_The hand of the devil is evil. They see me. I have to be careful. I removed the hand of the devil. They still see me. Who are they? I don't know…and that scares me._

Booker heard a light rumbling sound, as if heavy boots were walking somewhere.

_I hear voices of— of young girls, deep throating wails. I see things, tears in the air…darkness and cold creeping in through them. I can see a city…and the city is watching me back like a hungry shark._

The Voxophone stopped, as Booker calmly pushed the handle of the door on the right. The door opened to a bathroom, well-kept, and seemingly normal with the white ceramic tiles and the mirror that held the medicinal cabinet behind it. He tried to spin the wheel for the faucet, and was actually surprised when it worked.

It stuttered for a moment, before letting out the reddish rusty water. The pipes had probably not been cleaned in ages. Soon, the water turned at least drinkable. He drank avidly, trying to shake off the parched throat and to wash away some of the soot in his air.

He had to go back to Elizabeth as fast as possible, but he just couldn't without a Sky-Hook. He opened the cabinet, and then grasped the painkillers within. There were Morphine bottles and syringes, as well as sedatives and tranquillizers. Probably the man needed them, if he jumped at shadows.

_Pot, call the kettle black please._

He closed his eyes, shaking his head as he closed the cabinet.

A bright yellow eye stared at him from the mirror's reflection, surrounded by bronze metal. A loud wail escaped the single giant orb as Booker gave out a scream and turned around, firing a wave of pellets into the air…

That hit the opposite wall leaving a hole behind.

"What the FUCK was that!?" he screamed, as he quickly recharged the shotgun and took a few quick peeks outside. There was nothing. The corridor was empty.

He breathed in deeply, wincing at the pain his chest was giving him.

The only thing he was glad about was that the Shield, through the use of the electromagnetic waves, actually 'set' his bones in the right position. It didn't make it any less painful, but he would no longer die because a broken rib punctured his lungs.

He moved to the other door, and just as carefully as before he opened it.

"Calm down Booker," he muttered to himself. "There's no-one here..."

This had to be the man or the woman's room. There was a drawer, a dresser, two bed-desks and a Voxophone on the bed. Beneath the bed he could see the glint of something else too, but what truly surprised him was the wooden planks barring the window, and an old clock swinging its pendulum and ticking away time next to the bed.

A hastily made bed stood in a corner, while a bunch of straw was in the other corner. He nearly gagged. Surrounded by electrified wires, a charred body stood still filled with spasms. Maybe he had been a servant, but now…now the man was without a doubt a corpse filled with burned and charred flesh. The thick smell of cooked meat reached his nostrils, making him retch in the corner as a memory slammed into his head.

_Deliver the rifle, you piece of Indian shit._

_They say he's deaf sir. _

_I say he's just being difficult. Take it away from him._

_Sir? Sir look out!_

_Fire. Shots. Bullets flying. Someone had a tomahawk. One took out a sword. Blood everywhere. Then the cannons began to fire…_

_Charred flesh. Vaporized corps. Torn limbs._

_And he was hauling someone. _

_Shoot them, Booker, shoot them!_

_The Pistol in his bleeding hand fired._

_In the backs of the retreating Indians. Through tents where the children had hidden._

_Burn them to the ground!_

_Burn them all!_

He winced as he returned to the ghastly room. His eyes adjusted to the dim light, as the window appeared to have been barred shut with wooden planks. He opened the drawer and the dresser first, taking out stuff hastily. He found a half-eaten chocolate biscuit, stale and old from time…

And he ate it nevertheless. The taste of chocolate beneath that of dust was enough to placate his beating heart. He found a few Silver Eagles, and in the bed-desks…

He found a machine-gun and enough bullets to fend off an army.

He placed the Broadside at his belt, before grabbing the machine gun and checking if it worked. The trigger worked, as well as the mechanical bits. He could use it. He filled his pockets with the cartridges until he was satisfied he had enough to drown in iron half of the police-force of Columbia.

Finally, he moved to the pendulum-clock, which seemed to be ticking towards midnight, rather than the afternoon he had most definitively been in. It had to be a trick, right? It couldn't already be midnight. The light from outside the window clearly showed it wasn't midnight, and so he pushed the button of the Voxophone.

_I hear eyes under the bed. I see sounds coming from thin air. I asked my servant to stay in the corner and watch —to prove me right, of course. He refused, so I tied him with wire and convinced him otherwise. Shock Jockey always works. Gives the right spark to the inferior races…shh, heard that?_

The sound of rumbling, and wails.

_I know I'm not mad. I saw them. I know they exist. Cthulhu, Dagon, Nyarlathotep and the others…I see their beasts of iron and madness walk around my house! I see their little abomination trudge with huge red syringes…I see them…Lovecraft, you told me of war, but I was too blind to see._

A sound of something detonating.

_No longer. I have detached myself from the rest of Columbia. The sins of the Elder Gods will not taint the beautiful city of the Prophet! Do you hear me, gods!? I will not—_

The Voxophone interrupted itself there once more, the tape probably finished. He was dealing with a madman, that was all there was.

He slowly dropped on one knee, to stare beneath the bed.

Yellow eyes stared back at him.

Yellow eyes belonging to a puppet. A puppet that didn't look like Songbird at all, but instead like a man in a diving suit, which held in place of a hand a drill.

He quietly pulled it out from beneath the bed. The glint came from the 'eyes' of the diving suit, which were made out of something hard and probably reflective of the light.

He shuddered as he heard a moan coming from beneath.

It had to be the wood of the house croaking. That was it.

There was just no way it was anything else.

He slowly stood up, making his way outside and then calmly reaching for the stairs. He was calm. He was extremely calm. He wasn't anxious at all. He was just…taking a nice stroll down an abandoned house, abandoned and lacking anything to be afraid of.

He descended the U-shaped stair, the steps creaking as he came down on the lower floor.

At the end of the floor's corridor, he caught for a fleeting instant the back of a metallic hulk taller than him by a good feet. He froze on the spot, as the figure disappeared behind the corner.

"Mr. Bubbles! Let's go!"

A girl's voice called, and Booker unfroze. He ran through the corridor, ignoring the blood-written words on the walls around him. He ran until he spun around the corner…

To see nothing. Well, nothing except a tear, that was already closing up on the sight of a young girl standing on the shoulders of a giant metal man, who held a drill in place of one of his hands.

The tear closed completely, leaving him to face what looked like the entrance-hall. Near the door, the one that supposedly led outside, a glass cabinet showed him empty hangers for the Sky-Hooks.

But one of them wasn't empty at all.

He opened the cabinet's panels, removing the Hook and substituting his broken one with it. He gave it a few tries, spinning the blades to make sure it worked.

Then, he opened the front door.

To stare straight into the giant eye of Songbird who screeched at him.

He closed the door fast, faster than ever, as he turned and began to dash forward, past the stairs and into the door on the side of them that gave into the kitchen.

Behind him he could feel the shattering of the wood as the giant leather construct burst through it. The backdoor opened into the air directly, and as Booker held his right hand to the sides, avoiding another fall into the air, he saw beneath him the fires holding the house afloat.

On the kitchen's counter near him, a bronze metal pole, as big as his forearm, seemed to shine wickedly. He grasped it as the dents on one side seemingly attached to perfection with his Sky-Hook, and as he spun the blades once more…

Sparks, of fire, erupted from the blade.

Then Songbird charged through the kitchen, and he had no choice but to jump outside.

Up above, on the rooftop, he could see a hook out of his reach. He morphed into the Murder of Crows, before attaching himself to the crane's metal hook in a shower of sparks. He landed on the roof of the building, which apparently began to fold on itself as Songbird emerged on the other side of the house.

Booker grasped his machine-gun tightly, taking aim as the giant bird swung back up in the air.

"You weren't this tenacious last time!" he yelled at the bird, which opened both of his eyes to flare twin lights on the roof. He gritted his teeth as he began to fire, the rattling of the bullets flying in the air as they struck the bird and bounced off.

"Fuck this," Booker muttered, as Songbird descended from the skies with both his claws forward. He ran back to where the crane was, attaching himself to it as the bird literally tore apart a huge chunk of the roof. The right side of the house began to crumble, as the left one instead began to rise. He jumped, grasping with his hands the borders of the roof and pulling himself upwards.

The ground beneath him shuddered, as he dashed forward. He barely managed to jump off the other side, landing on a house-wide metallic grate of sorts, which was being lifted upwards by the 'floaters' of Columbia.

"So this is how they float, huh," he mumbled, as behind him the last bits of the house fell. The thing was starting to rise, and fast. Songbird on the other hand seemed keen on getting his life, because the bird was now circling around the 'floater' not caring the slightest of the bullets he was trying to put through the beast.

"Stay still!" he screamed. "Just die already!"

And just as the beast flapped its wings up, preparing for a dive, Booker saw it.

He saw a grey line form right where the chest of the beast was. A tear in space, which he had no idea on what to do with.

He dashed to the side, avoiding the sweeping movement by inches as the leather wings nearly decapitated him.

The junctures of the wings with the back of the bird…

Was that a weak point?

"Well! Is that the best you can do!?" Booker screamed again, his breath starting to lack as he felt his chest constrict. "I am still alive!"

Songbird roared again, his eyes now crimson as he once more prepared to dive.

"I have to be mad," Booker whispered to himself. The Sky-Hook's blades twirling and being set on fire by the grating against the bronze pole attached to it, which was probably a Nostrum all things considered.

The Devil's Kiss entered his thoughts then…

And when Songbird dived against him, Booker DeWhitt became the perfect textbook example of what a charging Fireman can do to an enemy, because the man _charged_ back.

Booker swung the blade upwards as he crouched, the metal grates hurting his knees like hell…but at the same time, the burning momentum of the Sky-Hook tore through one of Songbird's leather section, sending the bird to wail as it tried to flap harder to remain afloat.

"Well!? Well! Look what the cat brought in! A burned bird!" Booker laughed, more out of the conjunction of pain, fear, relief and Morphine, his best friend forever.

"Can't fly? Cat got your wing!?" he screamed as he fired a hail of bullets at the retreating back of the bird.

"YEAH! Run away you fucker! Run away!" Booker chuckled, before laughing out loud once more.

"Get the hell out of my sight," he snarled to the clouds where the bird had disappeared through.

Finally, the floater pierced the veil of clouds that separated him from the Sky-Line network, and as he attached himself to one of them, he felt all the anxiety and stress leave him, replaced with a sort of content feeling…

The other Bookers were all stopped by Songbird, weren't they?

Well…he was the one who stopped the bird.

Nobody would take Anna away from him, not as long as he drew breath. Not even an army of Songbirds would be able to.

Anna was his daughter. Never mind the original Booker who had her, she was his daughter.

And once they'd get to Paris, he'd even buy her the Tour Eiffel, if she really wanted it.

Finally he reached the 'safe' and 'solid' ground of a bigger building, and from there he landed safely on a nearby roof.

He was in Soldier's field now.

His gaze settled on the exit of the Earnest Eagle's show, which was where Elizabeth had to have gone through the first time. His eyes travelled to where the electricity generator was still to malfunction, and finally they settled on a memory.

Of course…

Last time around, the metal shutter had closed just as they were about to pass through.

He managed to climb down through a ladder on the side of the wall, ignoring the stares of the passerby as he began a mad dash backwards, to where he hoped Elizabeth still was.

He passed by the salt machine, without even stopping a second.

There, the metal shutter was down.

"Elizabeth!"

"Mr. Crow? Mr. Crow! You're alive!" the excited voice that came from the other side of the metallic shutter made his heart beat faster. He grasped the lower side of the 'obstacle' between him and his daughter and pulled it upwards. He repressed the screams of pain for his bones creaking in protest, and his muscles demanding rest from the efforts he had gone through.

But in the end, it didn't matter. Anna passed quickly on the other side, looking at him with a mixture of pure awe and a smile on her face that would have made his day even if Songbird had smashed his entire skeleton.

He dropped the metallic shutter back down.

"Mr. Crow?"

"No," he whispered, looking at her blue eyes who were watching him, studying him and trying to find out how wounded he was. "Call me…"

He gasped for air. He had nearly lost his daughter to the bird. Lost her without even telling her how much she was important to him.

Why should he keep quiet, when the risk of losing her was only meant to increase?

Wasn't this selfish in the end?

If he didn't tell her, and he died, then she wouldn't be saddened of losing her real father…but 'real' was a perspective-related choice. He wasn't her 'real' father just as much as she wasn't his 'real' daughter. But he was her father and she was his daughter.

That wouldn't change.

It was a constant, wasn't it?

"I am…" he hesitated.

If he did tell her, then he would have to explain about the twins, the universes, and she would catch on. She was always too smart for her own good, and…and if she realized he wasn't the 'correct' father for the 'correct' universe…

"I…"

In the end, the question came down to a single choice.

Did he tell the girl, or did he not?

And to that…

He knew the answer.

**Author's notes**

'**The answer is…author's notes'**

***Hears the screaming of rabid readers all around the world demanding I answer the question* *Wails of tormented souls screech their agony* *similar laments echo around the world***

**Well, this chapter was fun to write and practically wrote itself in two-three hours.**

**Really. **

**The 'fight' with Songbird should remind people of those games where the 'big monster' harasses the player throughout much of the game, losing 'pieces' and being sent back before a final confrontation in the end. Will Songbird live/die? Well, we will see.**

**The 'house' actually is a fair bit of symbolism.**

**(Except for the title, 'The House'…shivers.) Since we know Fink actually saw tears…what if someone else saw other things? Like, you know, a film on Cthulhu and believed it real because of the future cinema effects, while at the same time seeing through tears Big Daddies and little sisters running amok.**

**And Booker is starting to 'see' things too.**

**The Salts and the Vigor's backslash are coming around, my dear readers…and the explanation on why not everyone in Columbia is a Vigor addict.**

**The 'Hook-Nostrum' could be considered either the GEAR that adds 70% of fire damage and burns enemy, OR the Nostrum that grants the ability to 'fire-charge' like a Fireman.**

**It is 'balancing' in the same area, so it's neither 'ultra-power of doom' and neither 'what the hell'.**

**Q&A**

**I loved the reviews I got! So keep them coming! **

**This chapter had little of Anna.**

**And did I scare anyone in the 'House' section?**


	10. Hell Hath No Fury Like a Lutece Scorned

Sometimes

Chapter Ten

Elizabeth Comstock, or actually Anna-without-a-surname, was moping. She had been ordered to dash inside the strange looking building with giant eagles all around and music playing, while Mr. Crow fought against Songbird. She was moping because she had already gone past the stages of shock, fear, disbelief, more fear and finally sadness and grief. She had also barely gone on a denial spree, expecting her savior to just waltz in a few minutes later unscathed…but she had quickly clamped down on it: _nobody_ defeated Songbird.

Her jailer was anything but weak, and Mr. Crow…well, Mr. Crow was human, like her.

There was no way Mr. Crow was able to win against the giant bird. No matter how much she wished it, she knew her time outside in his company was coming to an end. The man had protected her for a bit, but now it seemed it was up to her to take care of herself. She had kept away from the building's windows, half-expecting Songbird's eyes to peek through and find her.

She had tried to leave, but the electric generator just exploded near her, making her scream in fear as the metal shutter closed. No matter what she had tried, she simply didn't have the strength to push it upwards. So she had rested her back against the wall, near the shutter, and had begun to mope.

She was moping, thinking about how Mr. Crow had told her he'd bring her to Paris, to meet her father...and then had died because of Songbird. She was imagining her father sort of like one of the Founders, with wide shoulders, a warm smile and kind eyes. Instead of the figure of Zachary, her father was lean, younger and stronger. He also had strong arms, but gentle fingers.

He would call her Anna softly, and then he'd hug her tightly to the point where her very own breath would hitch. The images of Mr. Crow actually hugging her made her blush. What was she thinking, feeling all tingly in the situation she was in? She had planned all she would do once out of the tower…but now it didn't even matter. Songbird was close, and he'd be there waiting for her to just give a peek outside.

Her adventure had come to an end.

She knew she shouldn't have trusted the man with his promises —she knew she would just end up deluded. Yet she couldn't help but believe in him, for some sort of strange reason. It was as if she had known the man somewhere else, a long time ago. He did have some sort of familiar air around him that just screamed 'safety' to her brain...maybe it was the blush that still was heating her face —it was making it difficult to think straight with its warmth.

And the ways he had held her…she actually shivered at that, a bitter smile forming on her lips. The man was dead by now. She knew that Songbird was just taking his sweet time, and that no other savior would ever come around. She had had her chance, and she had lost it.

She had looked around, every now and then dreading the sounds of hover-boats flying by, thinking them to be her transport back to her prison. Yet none had come for her. She had found quite the bit of cash, looking in every nook and cranny, placing her hands in the drawers and opening the locks she had found on a safe in the corner.

Sure, it wasn't properly legal, but 'in for a penny in for a pound' was written on one of the books she read, so why not?

She was finally starting to believe she would die of starvation, surrounded by those Eagle puppets, when she heard his voice coming across the metal shutter.

"Elizabeth!"

She had answered him, and the next thing she knew she had been out of there, staring into the man's tired face. His eyes had held a spark of relief she had never seen before, as if he had truly been worried about her. He looked dusty, to say the least. Had a house fallen on him to reduce him to such a state? He was the perfect example of disheveled and gruff appearances…and yet she couldn't help feel her heart flutter as he seemed to be finally on the verge of telling her his name.

Finally her knight in shining armor would have a name. What would it be? Lancelot? Arthur? Maybe he was called Julius Caesar? That sounded a bit of a mouthful though. Something simpler like Henry? Thomas? He didn't look like a Thomas, but with names she supposed you could never know before hearing it.

"I'm Wiscart, Ryan Wiscart."

He stammered the name out at the same time his thoughts called him the worst coward in the history of mankind. He could have told the girl his real name right there and then, and instead he hadn't. What else could he do? If he told her, she would ask more questions. And out of all the questions he dreaded, only one did he fear more than anything else.

_What if there are more of us going around?_

He feared that question because he knew the answer to it now. If he didn't, he wouldn't have hesitated a single second in letting the girl know who he was.

"So…Mr. Ryan," Anna said with a slight frown. "Why Mr. Crow?"

"I feigned being a race purist, ended up in a Crow reunion… I had to lie all the way out of it," he murmured, trying his best 'it is not important, do not pry' tone. And failing utterly when the girl asked again.

"They let you go like that?"

"Yes, they did."

The girl narrowed her eyes for a moment, but said nothing. She displayed shock for an instant, before exclaiming.

"I nearly forgot! Mr. Cro— Ryan, here!" and then she handed him over a bag. A bag filled with coins. Literally, a bag filled with something like over a thousand Silver Eagles.

"Where did you get the bag?" he asked perplexedly as he stared down at the veritable pool of money he was holding in his hands.

"I found it around… while I was waiting for you," she whispered with her eyes strangely fixing themselves on the wall near him. Why wasn't she looking at him in the face? Did he have some blood splattered on a cheek or something?

"We can't carry all this money around, people would notice," he retorted, grabbing a few larger-size coins from within. He didn't say money wasn't good to have around, but more than one thousand Silver Eagles in small pieces? That was a completely different thing.

"Oh, well… what happened with Songbird?"

"I wounded him," he replied as he dropped the bag in the corner. Some lucky soul would probably find it and have a field day, but for the moment they were set.

"Ah so you— you did what!?" Elizabeth's shriek was actually something that made him wince.

"I wounded him."

"That's not possible," the girl whispered. "He's…he's a giant! And he's really strong and…"

"And he ran away with a wounded wing," Booker finished her trailed off words, before putting his right hand on the girl's shoulder. "Listen to me, Anna: I promise I will get you to Paris and to your father, and nothing will stop me. Not Comstock, not Songbird, _nothing_ will."

He didn't expect the girl to start bawling her eyes out, or for her to actually _hug_ him of all people.

He didn't do hugs. Sure, he could _hold_ people and he could pat people's heads or backs, but a mere and simple goody-two-shoe hug of a body pressed against his? That was out of the equation. He stiffened, nearly crying out in pain from the abuse of having his chest touched. His daughter noticed his discomfort, because she detached herself with a bashful expression.

"Sorry, are you hurt? I didn't see anything that looked like a wound Mr. Ryan, but—"

"Everything's fine: we should get going before we waste more time around here."

Anna nodded meekly, before following him quietly outside. She actually gave a worried glance around the sky, as if she expected Songbird to come back for another round. If the bird did, he'd show him a thing or two he could do with a flaming Sky-Hook. He actually wondered if he could 'empty' Songbird like a Turkey before filling him up with—

"Mr. Ryan? Why are you smiling like that?"

He blinked and then shrugged. "I was having a nice mental image," he replied truthfully.

"Oh…you know Duke and Dimwit?"

Booker realized it then that they had already been walking through Soldier's Field for a while, and while Anna was somehow chomping down on another Cotton Candy —was she hungry? Damn, he should have bought something to give her— they were now watching the puppet show of Duke and Dimwit.

"Don't be a Dimwit!" the show's puppet yelled out loud, followed by the children and, much to his embarrassment, Anna too.

"Anna," he chided the girl. His face grew softer a moment later. "Are you hungry?"

The girl had the decency to blush before meekly nodding. He smiled at her, before his gaze moved to where the glaring green neon of 'Café Eden' seemed to be calling out for him. He walked in that direction, the girl trailing behind him somewhat surprised, but as they entered the café she seemed to return to her vivacious self.

The café had been closed with a shutter the first time he had been around, probably because of the late hour, the news of the False Prophet and what-not. Now it was open, and the overly large matron at the counter was actually smiling at them with a kind sort of smile. The type Booker had come with years to associate to those nice folks who claimed that 'this loan? You won't even feel it draining your wallet!'

Still, the prices were fair —especially when one considered he wasn't actually 'earning' the money. And a couple of persons were already sitting in a corner of the bar, drinking their coffees or eating small sandwiches. He reached for the counter with Anna in tow.

"What can I bring you two lovebirds?" the counter-woman asked with her bright smile.

"Ah, we're—" he stopped midway. 'Father and daughter' was already on the tip of his tongue when he had frozen, and so it was Anna who took the words out of his mouth.

"I'm his daughter madam," Anna said with a slight rose color on her cheeks.

"Oh my, I'm sorry —I must have been misled. Well, what can I bring you, dearies?"

"Anything with meat in it," Booker managed to let out with a strangled tone. Did the girl know? How did she know? When did she know? How could she know? Who had told her? What the hell was he thinking all of this? Wasn't she angry at him? Was this the type of 'cool' anger women used? What was he going to do now?

"I'm fine with what my…father, takes." There it was again. He hadn't imagined it. Who the hell had told the girl!?

They sat down in a corner, after ordering also a few bottles of water because you never know when thirst might hit you. He stared at the girl with wide eyes, as the raven haired Anna instead just blushed and looked at the surface of the small table.

"I'm sorry," she blurted out in small squeaky voice.

"F…For _what_?"

"I panicked," she whispered. "I told her the first thing that came to my mind," she looked to the ground, her hands tightening against the table's cloth as she bit her lower lip. "It's just that…what else could I say? I'm the kidnapped and you're the kidnapper?"

Booker froze in place for a minute, before a loud half-strangled sigh of relief escaped his lips. He smiled a moment later, before chuckling nervously.

"Oh yeah, yeah right…I understand."

The embarrassing silence ended when his daughter began to talk again in a barely hearable voice.

"What are you, Mr. Ryan? Some sort of…of mercenary? A Vox Populi?"

"No," he answered back. "I'm not in this for the money, nor the ideals." He winced slightly, as he whispered back, "I'm a…I'm just a g—" he closed his eyes. "I'm just a selfish person."

He wasn't a good guy. He wasn't an idealist. He wasn't the mercenary of the first time, in this only for his debts. He was just selfishly claiming this girl as his daughter, never mind what the other Booker would say. The other Booker hadn't gone back for her, so she…she was free to claim?

He breathed in slowly. Who was he to 'claim' someone else's daughter? Who did he think he was?

_I earned this! I did all that I had the first time!_

The other hadn't gone back for her. He would have. He always would.

_The other and you are the same, aren't you? You would and would not go back to her. You would and would not stop Comstock from taking your daughter. _

Was it his fault, if someone else had not gone back to take Anna? But then, someone else had succeeded in claiming the young girl back, someone else had partially managed, someone else had never sold the girl in the first place, someone…

But the Lutece had gone to someone who would, because it made sense for them not to go to someone who would refuse.

Out of the infinite Bookers, a few had to be born in richness, a few had to become Zachary without the infertility brought forth by the Tears, and a few had to have refused the twins no matter what.

But out of the Infinite ones that had refused, Infinite ones had accepted.

Yet it was always only one girl, no matter the Bookers used.

Why only one Anna, with infinite of him available?

Experiment.

Thought experiment.

Stretch the boundaries.

He understood what this was, and the sick feeling settled in his soul as he felt the bile rise to his throat. He was a lab rat. A lab rat for a giant inhuman test on casualty and chances, on constant and variables. He was nothing more than an equation written on a chalkboard that the twins were so keen on watching unfold.

And then they'd erase the chalkboard, and start again with another him.

_Deliver the gun!_

He closed his eyes as a sharp bout of pain settled in his brain, forcing him to bring his hand to his face and feel the slick sensation of blood dripping on his open palm.

"Mr. Ryan," Anna whispered in fright. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," he answered back.

Where was the food to begin with?

"Mr. Ryan? Can I ask you a question?" she clasped her hands together, her eyes staring at the whitening knuckles as if to gather strength.

"Yeah, ask away."

"Is there a…is there a woman in your life, Mr. Ryan?"

He closed his eyes. There had been.

"There was, but she died giving birth."

The girl's eyes softened considerably, as she then asked the question he knew she would ask.

"Oh, so you have a child?"

"No," and the thick silence that came afterwards wasn't removed until after they had eaten their sandwiches and drank, and even then, there was this sort of somber mood that Booker hadn't recalled the first time around.

"So…that's why you're helping me," the girl murmured in the end, as the two of them stepped outside the café.

"Huh?"

"You're a kind man, Mr. Ryan," Anna smiled at him. "Don't let anyone tell you different, you hear me?"

"If you say so," he was embarrassed to admit it actually lifted his spirits, to have his daughter defend him. Maybe he could tell her the truth? Maybe as they took the transport to the First Lady airship. That would—

"Mr. Ryan? Do you know if I have a mother too?"

"Ah, no…she died." He muttered. "Her name was Mary: your father told me that."

"Like the virgin mother of the son of God?"

"Well, I suppose."

"You're not a believer?"

"I hardly think speaking to the empty air around you will do you good. It's hands that build a dam, not prayers for the river to stop flooding."

"God is much more than that, Mr. Ryan," Anna chided him.

_Come on Booker, for me? It's just mass._

_No. Never._

Never.

"God didn't do anything for my wife, why should I think he started caring all of a sudden?"

The girl sighed and shook her head slightly.

"God always cares: he sent you to get me out of my prison."

"No," he replied calmly. "_There is no God. Only man_."

The silence was deafening, interrupted only by the now closer crackling of the electric generator. He'd need the Shock Jockey to get past that, because without it the barge wouldn't move. He knew he'd have to trek all through the Hall of Heroes again, but if he got to where Slate was…then maybe he could convince the man to use his soldiers for a better cause?

As predicted, the generator gave away just as they moved closer to it.

He actually wondered why they always did that. Was there something that somehow resonated around the two of them? Had everything remained the same, he would have given the fault to Elizabeth's powers…but this time? This time he didn't know…

But did he actually care, as long as he had his daughter safe?

No, he realized as he slowly turned to reach for the hall of heroes. He didn't care.

The five hovering boats that suddenly rose from around them, surrounding them with the rockets and the Firemen within, with the few crazy Crows howling however…

That made him care, especially with the sixth smaller boat, with Zachary of all people aboard it.

"Very well," Zachary intoned. "You have proved your point, Mister Ryan. Now, _would you kindly_ give me back my precious daughter?"

He anxiously gulped down, as his gaze fell to where the old hag of the Café Eden had apparently closed shop and was 'wooing' over the prophet's appearance. Of course…he'd have to change his clothes again, if he survived this ambush.

"Hey, Anna, do you trust me?" he asked the girl, who was probably far more afraid than him.

The girl's eyes narrowed as he gazed back at him, before nodding. A few of the guards were closing in on them, their hands on their batons as if ready to strike. Of course they wouldn't fire with the Volley Guns until Anna was away from him: they couldn't wound the girl.

"Good," then one of the guards got close enough.

It happened fast, faster than the others in the barge could understand. One moment, the kidnapper of the Lamb, the False Shepard, brought his arms upwards.

The next, he had grasped the Lamb, flung himself in a fiery charge that so much reminded the guards of a Fireman against a guard, and then all three of them had fallen beyond the safety rails, beneath the clouds.

"AFTER THEM!" the Prophet had yelled, but as the hover boats began their slow descent, miles below Booker DeWhitt had smashed the head of the Columbia guard, grabbed her Sky-Hook and then, always in mid-air, forced Anna to wear it.

"_YOU'RE MAD_!" Anna screamed straight at him, as he merely began to laugh. The Sky-Lines appeared beneath them, and as he hooked himself on the rail, he heard the satisfying clink of the girl following behind him. The rails rose a few meters afterwards, bringing the two of them back up, back into soldier's field, with the guards all running around like headless chickens and the crows screaming their hatred.

Booker jumped down on the rooftop, his eyes reaching to where the Hall of Heroes was. Next to him, he heard the soft clunk of Anna's feet land roughly and wobbly for the first time. He held her by the shoulders, making sure she was steady on her feet before walking through the rooftops to where the ladder of last time was.

"We need Shock Jockey," he told her. "We should find it in the Hall of Heroes."

Anna narrowed her eyes, but simply nodded. The girl seemed suspicious of something, but of what?

"Mr. Ryan? Have you ever been in Columbia before?" she tentatively asked, as he half-closed his eyes, trying to focus on the police forces now roaming around the streets. He supposed he could avoid them, or a large majority of them…but if only he had…

He heard a sniffle.

He heard a light sob and a choked crying noise coming from behind him.

Booker spun around faster than he thought possible, his shotgun already primed for firing…and he stilled when he saw Rosalind Lutece crying her eyes out, with her legs dangling from the other side of the rooftop.

Anna was looking at him perplexed: did she not see the woman?

"He left," she choked out between sobs. "I can't find him." Her face was filled with tears, falling down her chin. Her hand was holding onto a rather strong-looking alcohol. The letters read _Peach Vodka, 95% of alcohol_.

"Are you—"

"Don't you dare, Mr. DeWhitt!" she hissed back at him. "Don't even try! I'm not fine, can't you see it? I'm not fine! There's no perspective that can show I'm fine, because I'm not! I'm constantly not fine!"

He froze, turning to look at Anna who was still puzzled.

"She can't see me, DeWhitt, not if I don't want her to," Rosalind muttered. "I'm getting drunk everywhere and in anytime and I'm still not fine. Didn't alcohol work in getting away sorrows? Didn't it work for you, you thought experiment lab rat?"

He raised an eyebrow. That seemed quite a bit of a farfetched insult.

"Alcohol rarely solves problems, Miss…and if you could become visible, I'd gladly avoid looking like a madman."

"Why? Aren't you one to begin with? Look around! This is your product, isn't it? Columbia is as much a fruit of your labor as Anna is. This here, all of this…" her left arm made a wide berth to show all that was around them. "Is in you, pushing to get out. All that Zachary Comstock does, you could do to. All that he justifies, you do to. Do you think yourself racist? Well, guess what? You kill people just to advance your own schedule, Mr. DeWhitt. Zachary does that too, is he a racist or an opportunist? Different realities, same perspective. You're not a saint, and you're not a good man."

The woman choked another sob. "Robert," she pitifully whined. "I want Robert."

"Why?"

"Because he understands! Do you know how difficult it is to find someone that understands, Mr. DeWhitt? Do you know how difficult it is to find someone, a special someone, who will always be right next to you no matter what you say or do because he believes in the same things as you? Do you know that? Do you!? No, you don't. You just care for your daughter and that's all, so why are you surprised I care for Robert in the same way? He was there when I needed someone, someone who didn't look at me like a…like a frigid and horrendous woman devoid of emotions. Just because my jokes on physics were incomprehensible does not mean I have a horrid humor! He was my brother, my twin, the one who understood me…and now _he's gone and I can't find him_!"

"So why are you here?" Booker asked again, his shotgun now lax between his arms.

"Because I want to know, Mr. DeWhitt…I want to know if Robert's theory was correct or not."

"Why tell me this?"

"Because you are a lab rat, Mr. DeWhitt, but if you think this is going to change anything, then know this: interrupt the experiment in whatever way you can think of, and I will end you. I will smother you, burn you, chop you, and poison you. I will kill you, slowly and painfully until nothing remains. I will strangle you and drown you and beat you into a mush of pulpy flesh if you so much as _try_ and _fail_ the experiment. You are all I have left of Robert's theorem…and if you fail…I will kill you, not when you'll be in the middle of it, not when you'll be near the end or at the end. No, I will let you see the tower of Paris and hope for a better future, and then I will strike you down. I will make you suffer, Mr. DeWhitt…so _don't you dare fail me_."

And then the woman was gone, and Booker's throat constricted under the pressure of what he was being asked to do.

How did one win an experiment, if one had no clue what the experiment was in the first place?

But even then…

"Mr. Ryan? Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he choked out. "Yeah…"

As long as Anna was in Paris, watching the Tour Eiffel…did it matter if he would no longer be there with her?

**Author's notes**

**Chapter's done.**

**Some of the cursive text is taken from the kindly Mr. Ryan. **

**What is Robert's fate? Smart-guys, I've hinted at it already.**

**And, well, some sort of confession did happen. As for the truth being revealed to Elizabeth, you'll have to wait the Slate-Booker showdown. I've already got the scene in mind and it's **_**awesome**_**.**


	11. The Unrelenting Sickness of Lies

Sometimes

Chapter Eleven.

"Mr. Ryan? Why are you planning a full scale assault?" his daughter's voice made his ears twitch, as he calmly made sure all his weapons were perfectly primed.

"It's easier to change weapons, rather than just wait and reload in the middle of the fray," he answered back truthfully. "If only I had a Carbine or a sniper rifle..." he muttered. "Could pick them off from afar, wouldn't even have to dirty my hands too much."

A Zealot of the Lady loomed by the corner, making his rounds around the ticket booth. Two Firemen hung in a corner, somehow steaming garbled words at one another. A few policemen made rounds, but they generally all seemed to agree by the lax way they held themselves that no sane man would return on his steps after being nearly ambushed successfully so soon.

Booker had left his sanity the moment he had understood how things were different, so he really didn't need to think much about what to do. Really, all he needed was for Anna to follow him till the Hall of Heroes, and if he reached that while being followed by the Columbia police…

Well, Slate would understand why he didn't want to kill his men then, right?

And even if he didn't…he anxiously swallowed his saliva.

"Stay up here, wait until I hoard these guys elsewhere, and then run for the lift: wait for me in there, all right?"

"Mr. Ryan…who were you talking to before?"

"Now's not the time, Anna."

He gritted his teeth as he grabbed the ladder and began his descent. He could feel the wood creak as he reached the end of it and touched the floor. He grabbed the Crow's sword he held at his belt and brought his back against the wooden ticket booth's side.

Then, he waited for the guard to come around.

The moment he saw the man's face, the sword pierced him straight through the eye, while Booker's hand went to cover the man's mouth. He pushed the body on the ground, absent-mindedly patting him for something to—

There it was: a chocolate bar.

He held onto the sweet as he turned the booth, the Devil's Kiss being charged in his free hand. Then he made the throw.

The overheated plastic foil and the melted chocolate flew and slammed hard against the visor of the first Fireman, while the second received a blade till the hilt into his heart. Booker swiftly removed the blade, spinning his Sky-Hook as he flung his entire body at the already wounded man. The Fireman collided with the other, both of them crashing on the ground as he grabbed the shotgun from his side.

The shots echoed in the night air, splitting apart the heads of the two Columbian 'Special' Forces. Booker heard the cawing of the crows, and deftly rolled on the ground to avoid a flying murder, as the Zealots of the Lady seemed to be closing in on him.

"Well, what do we have here?" one of them taunted.

"It's Mr. Wiscart, Joe! He had us good, didn't he? False Shepard! He even killed that black guy in front of us," the other chuckled. "A pity, but we should have known: the False Shepard can be everywhere and in every mind, and his machinations and words are as sweet at the devil's tongue itself."

Booker finished recharging his shotgun, before zeroing in on the first of the Zealots.

The shot cleaved apart the man's right leg, while the other screamed obscenities as it dashed forward in the usual form of murder.

Booker brought his arms up, as the sharp beaks of the beasts cleaved through his flesh. He spun around with the Sky-Hook at the ready, and the moment the Zealot appeared behind him, his Hook's blades were already making contact with the man's neck.

"I know how you fight," Booker hissed as the Hook's blades tore apart the neck of the man. He swapped to the pistol, offing off the crying Zealot who was holding his mangled leg by shooting at the fanatic's head. "I killed hundreds of you already," he muttered to the corpse, his gaze fogging up for a moment. "You'll need more than this to—"

A volley gun's explosion tore apart the wood of the floor near him, sending splinters to crash against his right side. He jumped away, rolling on the ground as he descended the stairs and moved to grasp his machine-gun. He could see the Hover-Boats starting to come back, and so he began to shoot.

The bullets flew in the air as the Beasts onboard answered back in kind. He knew he was just annoying them, but that was his purpose. He gave a quick gaze at where Anna was, and was glad to see her already waiting for him near the lift.

He began to run, ignoring the bullets and the explosions flying around him, as he held onto the Crow's sword.

It was as he slammed himself as a murder of crows into the lift, that he realized he had completely passed by the Vigor-Upgrading machinery.

If it weren't for Anna already pressing the button of the lift, which had closed the elevator's panels, he would have actually turned back there and then to upgrade his Possession. This didn't stop him from pushing Anna against the wall of the lift, as bullets flew in just before the contraption began its descent. The girl gave out a girlish 'eep' before closing her eyes shut and waiting.

Booker breathed slowly, before detaching himself from his daughter.

Anna gasped, and then took a deep breath as she was probably calming her erratically beating heart. The lift stopped moving midway, as a fuse broke up in the panel. He sighed, before heading over to the electrical box and removing the pane. Grasping at the fuse, he calmly exchanged it with another, and then he stilled.

He turned his gaze to where Elizabeth —no, Anna, was. She was still as a lump of granite, a bee resting on her shoulder.

"Take. It. Off." She mouthed to him.

He remembered this accident. The last time…the last time hadn't there been a tear? The first of many?

So was Elizabeth…was she devoid of them?

He calmly moved his left hand to where the bee was…

_Bees. Hundreds. On his hand. Throw them at the enemy. Splicers. Hooks. Water. Metal corridors and hallways cramped in dark corner. The bees answer the call. Gatherer's garden. Distract those Houdinis!_

The bee stung him and he hissed as he flicked the insect against the wall, holding onto his stung hand. It was covered in bees. Swarming around his palm as it morphed into a veritable hive of them. Anna was looking at him perplexed, she wasn't seeing it.

He closed his eyes, before opening them again.

Booker sighed in relief as only the stinger of the single bee remained on one of his fingers. He removed it deftly, before returning to his job of realigning the fuses. He closed the panel and pushed the button again.

"Mr. Ryan? Is it…Is it normal for you to space out?"

"Yeah," he replied.

_Sit, would you kindly? Stand, would you kindly? Run! Stop! Turn. Was a man sent to kill, or a slave?_

_KILL!_

He winced. What was that all about?

Booker's head felt as if somebody had wanted to split it apart, as the doors opened. The lower level held at the end the crates filled with the Bucking Bronco, but he already had that in his system, didn't he?

"Isn't it…dangerous?"

"Everything's dangerous in my line of work," he muttered back. "But this is my last job," he hastily added.

"Is that why you don't seem to care about your life, Mr. Ryan?" she asked hesitantly. "I mean, no sane men would do what…what you're doing."

"You mean go up against an entire city?"

_I present you…_

_Rapture!_

He felt a memory slam into his brain from the side, forcing him to literally choke on his saliva. What was all of this about?

A metallic sphere with a glass panel, why was he inside the thing? It lowered itself as he saw an underwater city, people in diving suits seemingly walking along corridors with glass walls. Was this…what was this?

Rapture. The name sounded familiar, why?

He remembered then, wasn't Rapture written on the mechanical doors of that strange place, he and Elizabeth had visited? The place where Songbird had been killed?

What did it matter there and then?

Booker coughed, as the sight in his mind became blurry, and he found himself for a second staring at his hands. His wrists now seemed to sport tattoos of chains. _The great chain of industry that unites us. _

The shackles of a slave?

Finally, he opened his eyes completely to Columbia, to the place where there was a fussing Anna near him, shaking him by the shoulder with her face filled with fear.

"I'm fine," he croaked. He stumbled back up. When had he fallen on the ground?

"If that's fine, then I'm the bloody queen of England," Anna retorted, huffing. "Is it a terminal sickness? Is there no cure?" she asked then, with a soft tone.

"Uh?"

"This…all of this…I thought it was strange, no sane man would save me. You, on the other hand? You fight like a man possessed, you battle and wound Songbird, you're not afraid of the most powerful men of the Prophet —you're not afraid to die, because you're already dying."

There was a slight tremble in her voice, as she looked at him all misty eyed and afraid. Afraid he'd disappear or die on her just inches away from their destination.

He made an awkward smile, before mumbling back. "Nah, I'm just really sick from time to time, nothing to worry about Anna."

"You don't have to act strong, Mr. Ryan, I…I can take it, you know?"

"Uh?"

Her hands clasped to his chest as he frowned. The next moment, she unhooked the machine-gun from his side.

"Anna? What—"

"You'll need someone to cover you, Mr. Ryan. If you're having another of those bouts and…well, how difficult can it be? Aim and fire, right? Push the trigger and g—"

He grasped the machine-gun back swiftly, taking it out of his daughter's hands in a second.

"No," he hissed. "I will not have you become a murderer, Anna. _Never_."

He began to walk, the girl instead starting to choke on her sobs as she followed behind him.

"_Why_? I can help!"

"Killing someone…" he whispered as he came into view of the policemen who were talking about Slate in the square, "killing someone changes people."

The automated security machine in the corner was soon the target of his Possession. Just as Bucking Bronco departed from his hands, sending the grouped men to fly in the air. He slowly walked down the few wooden steps, ignoring the bullets flung in the air by the possessed machine that drove holes through the bodies of the guardsmen, before they were slammed on the ground in a sickening heap of broken bones and blood.

He stood there, like in a bloody picture book showing a man in the midst of a mound of corpses, hailing him as a knight who vanquished his foes. Anna looked at him tear-stricken, but he merely turned and fired with his shot-gun at the Crow who had come behind him in the meantime.

How could he forget?

He held the blood of half of Columbia within his hands. He held the sorrow of the widows, of the orphans. He was the source of the rage and the hatred.

He moved to the Crow's beheaded corpse, ignoring the retching situation of his head to remove the heavy clothes from the man's body. He needed a change of clothes after all.

As he put on the hood of the Crow, placed the coffin on his back and calmly settled the dark blue robes, he felt at ease. He didn't know why, but a crow cawed on his shoulder, pecking gently at the side of his face.

"Mr. Ryan?"

"Anna," he opened and closed the palm of his left hand. "Do I look the part?"

"Mr. Ryan… if the Prophet is afraid of me, then he'd better be prepared…because right now, you're scaring me."

He gulped down once more in nervousness, before nodding calmly. "Then he will fear me twice."

His daughter was afraid of him. Perfect, he could really touch cloud nine now…in a sarcastic tone of course. The first time around he had been the one afraid of her, but now…now without the tears she wasn't the one to be afraid of, no: he was.

That thought made him blink, as he began to walk to the bar where he knew was the secret Vox armory. He didn't need Anna's cypher-decryption on the bathroom's walls, but he stilled as he saw her gasp.

The corpses of the Vox actually shook her more than the people he had killed. Maybe because he had been quick, and she had never had the chance to digest it? Here instead were the corpses riddled with bullets, or backstabbed, laying around in the dingy looking bar.

He grabbed a bottle of wine from the many at the counter, before heading to the back where the bathroom was.

"Wiscart?" Anna called —her hands on a Voxophone. "This was in the kitchen," she said. "Next to a body."

"I know," he replied, before tipping the hat-stand. The wall gave way, creaking apart as it revealed to him the secret room where weapons were stashed.

"You can decrypt ciphers? Without a code?" the girl was mind-boggled as she followed behind him in the dusty and very much red-covered room.

If there was one thing Booker DeWitt had learned, was that there never was something as 'too many weapons'. He hoisted on his back a Carbine, holding the rifle fondly as he recalled the times he had done his well-placed shots in the hearts of the Handy-Men. Or those times he had countered the snipers on the rooftops after bringing them down with Undertow.

If only he had a bayonet of sorts, this would truly make it a field day.

Maybe he could use some string to knot the Crow's sword to the rifle?

"Mr. Ryan," Anna muttered. "Just who are you?"

He frowned, hadn't he already answered that?

"I'm—"

"No, no." She shook her head. "Who are you? You know who the Prophet is, you know what I want most, you're everything I could ever hope in a hero, you're capable of fighting against overwhelming odds, you're capable of slipping in with the Crows, you know where the Vox stack their weapons…who are you, Wiscart? Who are you, really?"

He took a deep shuddering breath, before shaking his head.

"I'm just me."

"No, you aren't." She slowly moved closer to him, her right hand to cup his cheek as her soft fingers traced what probably was one of the scars he had there. "You know, women love men with mysteries behind them," she thoughtfully tapped his chin, before crossing her arms over her chest and taking a few steps back. "I'll find out who you are Wiscart, mark my word."

Then she huffed and began to walk back upstairs.

He blinked.

That…

Oh no.

That can of worms? So soon? No.

He wasn't ready for a hormonal teenager daughter. He wasn't ready for said daughter having a crush on him. He might have been thick and gruff, but he wasn't an idiot. Still, as he reached for the lever that was meant to clear the sky-line, he gave a hesitant glance at Anna through the holes in the Crow's hood. The girl seemed to be glancing at him every so often, maybe to try and glimpse some sort of habit from him?

He removed his Crow's hood. He'd need his face to try and deal with Slate.

He just hoped the man would actually listen, and if not him, then his men.

Sure, going there dressed like a Crow was suicidal…but he had a plan. He just hoped Slate had the same love for theatrics as he used to have back in the old days.

"This is going to be awesome!" Anna exclaimed behind him, as she grasped her own Sky-Hook tightly, before jumping on the free rail. He followed behind her, jumping in mid-air when the freighters seemed to block their path. Anna screamed in joy behind him, maybe she was feeling some sort of 'freedom' in doing this?

He didn't know about that, for him this was simply something normal. The first time he had been scared, but then with the passing of the days he had grown accustomed to it. He no longer even feared heights. Booker grumbled half-naturedly as they reached their destination, the opening square of the Hall of Heroes glorified by the golden statue.

He heard the sniper's shot as it killed one of Comstock's guards, but he didn't bother to stop.

He brought both of his hands up in the air as he walked into the square, feeling the glares of the people in the balcony and probably ready to shoot him dead. Maybe they were curious of the girl who was following him in fear?

"_TELL CORNELIUS SLATE THAT THE WHITE INJUN IS HERE FOR HIM! TELL HIM THAT IF IT'S COMSTOCK HE WANTS, THEN I CAN GIVE HIM HIS DUES_!"

There was silence in the square. He hoped one of the guards had gone and told Slate. He wondered if the man would talk rather than fight. He wondered if he wasn't half-crazy like last time. He wondered a lot of things as he stood there in wait, as the minutes trickled by. To him it seemed like hours, like days even, as he waited for an answer.

Then the doors opened in a blast, and Cornelius Slate marched outside flanked by his men. Anna shrunk behind him, probably in fear.

"I know of only one man who can claim that title, you—" Cornelius stopped in front of him, his scarred face and head all too recognizable. The years in this dimension hadn't been kind to him, but he supposed they didn't even in his.

"I saved your life in Wounded Knee, Cornelius."

_The bleeding body he was carrying._

"You mocked me for my ancestors, until I torched down their tents. I was Corporal back then, wasn't I?"

Cornelius made a slight lopsided grin, before chuckling and exploding in laughter.

"And now you're dressed like one of those freaky Crows! Man, only you B—"

"STOP!" he screamed, raising his right hand. "Don't say my name."

"Uh?" the man looked perplexed.

"I'll explain, but not here." He added, his eyes turning to where Anna was standing. He brought her forward gently, holding her by the shoulders with his left arm. "Cornelius, this is Anna. The Prophet's daughter, his lamb…and Booker DeWitt daughter's too."

The eyes of Cornelius widened.

"Ah! You mean the good old sweetheart back home came true then? Very well…still, wait a moment. The Prophet's daughter?"

Booker nodded as he could feel Anna's throat hitch.

"Calm down Anna, Cornelius here might be scary, but he knows your father, your real father. He won't hurt you."

Somehow Cornelius understood there was a story behind it, because he just made his usual feral grin and nodded.

"Right the man is! Fought side by side, was a monster that man! Well, we'll exchange war stories inside. Better avoid the mosquitoes out here…" then he turned, signaling his men the usual 'friendly' and finally marched inside.

"Wiscart isn't your name." Anna whispered, her eyes looking straight at him with their accusing glare. "You lied to me. What about Paris? A lie too?"

"Not on Paris, on that I didn't." He answered her back as they walked inside. Him still having to hold her by the shoulders. "Now Cornelius, you've got someplace where we can talk privately?"

They passed through the broken chandelier and the soft red carpets, ignoring the vending machines and subconsciously tightening his hold on Anna's shoulders, so that she wouldn't see the ticket-seller backstabbed at the counter.

"Just round the corner boy, we can talk about that there." He unlocked a door in the room where the statue of Comstock stood, holding on to the plate about being the leader of the 7th. It was one of the dusty rooms that seemed to be used as impromptu barracks. It took Cornelius but a few barks to get the men out of there, and then look at him in wait.

He turned to Anna, and gently let go of her shoulders.

"Anna? Can you wait outside?"

"What? No!"

"Anna." He snapped back curtly.

"Not a chance, Wiscart! You won't get rid of me easily!"

"Go outside, now," he hissed at her.

"Make me," she demanded.

"A spitfire this one is!" Cornelius chuckled. "Just like her mother, but she's got her father's spunk I'll tell you. So…Wiscart? You went through that baptism shit in the end? Changed your name and all?"

He shook his head quickly, before hissing once more.

"Anna, get out."

The girl just tightened her crossed arm in front of her chest, narrowing her eyes on him.

"Fine," he whispered. "Fine."

He took a deep breath, and then turned to stare at Cornelius.

"Slate, I did not go through that baptism shit. Zachary Comstock did. I wallowed in my guilt for Wounded Knee for years, even after meeting Mary and having a child. Zachary Comstock became rich, funded a research on other universes and ordered Rosalind Lutece to bring him a daughter. He kidnapped Anna."

_You sold her!_

"He brought her here. Lady Comstock found out the truth, so the Prophet killed her, and then he killed the Lutece. Cornelius, I did not go through the baptism, I did not change my name. Zachary did, and his name before doing so was—"

"Booker DeWitt," Anna whispered with a sickened face. Her eyes settled on him. "You married M-Mary? You're…you're my _father_…and…"

"Boy, this is a pretty heavy tale, got anything to prove it?"

Booker pointed at one of the Prophet's manifests. "Color his beard and give him some hair on the head Cornelius, imagine him a bit younger. Who does he look like? You said it yourself: he wasn't at Wounded Knee."

"I never said that," Cornelius retorted before stopping. "But I was thinking it. Booker, just what—"

Booker turned fast, as he heard the dashing sound of Anna running away with her hands on her face, crying.

"Anna!" he turned to Slate. "I can get you all in Comstock's house, Slate. I know you want a man's death for your men, and I will give it to you if that's your wish. I know it seems impossible, but I can. The locks would recognize my signat—"

"Aye! I got it Corporal!" Cornelius snapped. "Go grab your daughter: if she's as feisty as you said your sweetheart was, then you've got a battle ahead of you!"

The man chuckled as Booker merely nodded and left in a hurry, chasing after his daughter.

"Where did she go?" he asked a few of Cornelius' men outside.

"That way Corporal!" one of them, an old man in his forties, told him as he pointed to where the hall gave way to the 'scenarios' of Peking and Wounded Knee. He choked out a 'thank you', before resuming his run. He literally tore from his hinges the doors, as he reached the area.

Where could the girl have gone? Wounded Knee? Peking? Or maybe straight ahead?

"Anna! Answer me!" he screamed.

"Leave me alone!" so Peking it was. He ran, ignoring the cardboard appearances of the yellow skinned revolutionaries, dashing forward as he saw the girl trying to push the lever of the motorized patriot, probably to open the door on the other side.

"Anna!"

"Get away from me!" she snapped back, pointing a pistol at him.

He froze. Where did the girl get a pistol?

"Anna, please, let me explain."

"What? Another lie? You…You said you'd bring me to Paris!"

"I will! I swear I will," he answered taking a hesitant step forward. "Cornelius just wants to die with his men against Comstock: I'll open him the door. We'll use the distraction to leave."

"How can I trust you?" she whispered, looking at him with sad eyes. "You lied to me all the way."

"I didn't know how to tell you," he replied. "Would you have believed me? Had I told you in the lift, had I told you after fighting Songbird…would you have believed me?"

"I…" she lowered her gun slightly, "I don't know."

"You read Rosalind Lutece book, didn't you?"

She blinked, before nodding quietly. "The quantum particles that—"

"Yeah, well…the bit about other universes. It's true. There are. Comstock stole you from me…"

_That's a lie, Booker. You know what happens when you lie? Someone calls the bluff eventually._

"And I came here to get you back. I studied, I mingled with the crowd, and I did what I could to learn where you were…I…" the lie came easily now that he had a reason for. "I did all that I could to be ready for this, to get you back…I just— I did things, Anna, horrible things." He clenched his fists. "I didn't know if you'd still want me as a father afterwards…so I lied. I thought I would tell you in Paris, or somewh—"

And then Anna hugged him, letting the pistol fall on the ground with a small clattering sound. She hugged him and cried on his chest, sniffling and muttering 'dad' as she clenched her small hands against his Crow robes.

He hugged her back, bringing his chin to rest on the girl's head as his right hand gently caressed her hair. He breathed slowly, closing his eyes at the feeling of this warmth.

The next moment, he heard a screech as he opened his eyes to a Splicer attack on him and the little sister he was protecting.

His left hand, a drill, roared to life as it splattered through the head of the enemy, tearing him apart.

He was the Delta Series, and as long as he drew breath, nobody would take Eleanor away from him.

**Author's notes**

**Rapture-Hanger? **

**Spider-Splicer-Hanger?**

**Cliff-Hanger?**

**In any event, let us go with the nice and comfy 'hanger' you are all so used to by now. Bioshock's 'cameo' will make slightly more pressing appearances as time goes by, as the words 'always a man, always a lighthouse, always a city' come into play in the 'second part' of the story.**

**And Booker is a bad, bad liar. But really, did I tug at your heartstrings just now with the ending?**

**Weren't you crying for the poor splicer?**

**Poor, poor splicer. It's not his fault he isn't loved!**

**Now for the Q&A:**

**Yes, Eleanor will make her appearance again. Trust me. It won't be pretty.**

**To Phillip: it will become clearer what is going on as time passes, even if it might take a while.**

**To Tenchi: indeed. The telegram is a clue, but not the entire thing.**


	12. The Choices of Fathers

Sometimes

Chapter Twelve

Fontaine Futuristic stood eerily menacing over them. Eleanor hummed along a song, as her narrow syringe grasped the reddish hue of the splicer's blood she needed to eat, in order to refine it. He just stood there calmly. He wasn't in a hurry, and neither were the bodies of the splicers he had killed. He was there, Delta Series, one of the top notch protectors of the city of Rapture.

People passed by him without as much as giving him a second glance. Some would-be splicers did wickedly smile at his daughter, but they knew better than to try, and as long as they didn't attack him, who was he to care? He had his job, and so had his little girl.

He carefully checked his drill-hand, removing with his fingers the bits and pieces of face belonging to the splicer he had killed.

Eleanor chuckled as she finished her job, before turning to gaze at him with her wide yellow eyes.

"Why are they always looking at me?" she asked, her tiny and squeaky voice making him skip a beat in his heart. She needed to be protected: he would protect her.

He made his guttural sound, and the girl smiled as she was lifted up on his shoulder. "Up we go! Two per three makes chicken, Mr. B!"

"Eleanor?" a voice called —a female voice that did not belong to another little sister. He turned to look at a woman who was moving forward. She was not armed, and that was the reason he hadn't yet attacked. Still, his daughter was holding onto his metal helmet tightly, and didn't seem to be recognizing her.

So it was an enemy.

If the enemy did not attack, he would not fight back. If the enemy did not scare his little sister, he would not attack back.

"I don't like you!" his daughter exclaimed.

Well, that settled it.

He moaned and screeched as he brought down his drill towards the unknown woman. The blond haired stranger screamed as she fell on the ground, tears streaking down her face as he stopped. This didn't look like a splicer attack to him. He knew his daughter was always a bit scared, especially when it came to people coming close, but he had to protect her from attacks, not curious bystanders.

He turned around and left. The gut feeling that told him he was making a mistake never settled on him, especially when his daughter began to sing.

"_In the house of upside down _

_Cellar's top floor, attic's ground. _

_In the house of upside down _

_Laughing cries and smile's frown. _

_In the house of upside down _

_Found is lost and lost is found."_

And then Booker DeWitt opened his eyes again. He was holding onto his daughter, Anna, with all of his strength. The girl had stopped sobbing and was already pulling away from his hug, by the time he regained complete presence of his self in the world. He had no idea what he had just seen.

Really, he was actually wondering if he had gone mad.

He could feel a slow dripping sound beneath his noise, a trickle of liquid falling alongside his chin as he brought his hand to check on it. There was blood. Not just a bit, but quite a lot. He frowned, but it was Anna's exclamation that brought him completely back to reality.

"Father!" she had her handkerchief at the ready before he could even answer back, nearly making him suffocate as she pressed it against his nose. "I need help over here!" she seemed to be expecting a medic or someone to come over at her earnest scream, her voice betraying her panic.

"I'm fine, Anna," he grumbled back. "It's normal." He added, grasping delicately her wrists and avoiding death by handkerchief at the same time.

"Normal?" she huffed, shaking her head. "You're bleeding. That's not normal. It never is."

"Tr—" _Trust me_ on this. Who would? He wouldn't. It was better to let her fuss than say something like that, but that didn't mean he would have to remain still.

"Father?" she murmured seemingly to herself, as he began to head back to where Slate was, in a slow walk hoping the girl would follow. "Father." Was she actually convincing herself of that?

She blushed a second later, before making a 'ew' noise. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, wondering what her antiques were about. The girl seemed flustered, as she did anything but lock eyes with him. She brought a lock of her hair back behind her right ear, before mumbling something that sounded terribly like 'nice way to go, Elettra.'

"Is everything all right?"

"Oh? Yes! Yes! Everything's fine, really!" she stammered out, before grabbing hold of his left arm with her own and clasping tightly around it. She even rubbed her side of the face against his shoulder, while exclaiming. "I've got my daddy now! You're Mr. B!"

"Mr. B?" he croaked. _Mr. B?_

"Well, your name is Booker too right? So I can't call you Booker when there's another bad Booker going around. So you're Mr. B! It's even got a ring to it, doesn't it? Mr. B, Mr. B, Mr. B!"

As the girl seemed to have a red face from embarrassment, to the point where she was clearly blabbering, he didn't know what to think.

_Mr. B, do you see the angels, Mr. B?_

"I'd rather you call me Booker," he murmured. "Father's fine too."

She blushed slightly, before sheepishly nodding and letting go of his arm. She coughed slightly with her hand in front of her mouth, trying to put back up a serious façade. She skittered next to him, coming back near Slate without as much as a worry as she stood behind him.

He had to remind himself that this Anna hadn't been overall hardened by the things she had been forced to do. This Anna was still largely ignorant of some ways of the world, and could apparently display bouts of childish affection when overwhelmed. Cornelius' face was a mixture of twitches of amusement as he watched the scene.

"Well, Booker…what's your glorious plan, Corporal?"

"Look," he began, drumming his fingers on the table. "We get to the Lady Comstock airship, and then we head on its intended tour. It should lead us near the Prophet's house, and once we are there I'll pass off as the Prophet for the security. You reach him and do what you want while we'll use the distraction to get away: everyone wins in the end Slate, right?"

The man thoughtfully brought his hand to his chin, before nodding.

"Yeah, I suppose we can."

"By the way, I need a Shock Jockey," Booker remarked. "Generators seem to explode near me."

Cornelius blinked, before shrugging. "Didn't take you for a Vigor type. Well, everyone has his sin I suppose—"

"Uh? What are you talking about, Cornelius?"

The man stared at him with his mouth slightly ajar. "You don't know?"

"Know what, Slate!?" he was starting to lose his patience.

"I mean…wait, you already have the Crow Vigor in you right? No wonder you could pass off as a Crow then," the man shook his head slowly. "Surprised you managed it actually, would have thought—"

"Can you explain, Slate, or do I have to force you?" Booker gritted his teeth, as the scarred man raised both of his hands up in the air.

"Booker, you must have realized not everyone's using Vigors, right? I mean, you have fought the police's block to get over here, and even my men…they don't all use them, right?"

"Yes, so?" there was the feeling of dread pooling in his stomach, the one that always warned him when something bad was going to happen. He turned to look at Anna who was holding onto his arm like a puppy who was about to be kicked.

"Not everyone can stand the Vigor in their bodies. Those who usually can, well, they're usually predestined for the stuff, 'Prophet' word to it. Crows can sniff their own 'flock' by themselves... that's why they probably were eager to bring you in their fold after all: you smelled like them to begin with."

"But I never drank the Vigor beforehand!"

_But you did the last time, didn't you Booker? They didn't gift it to you then, you stole it from one of their corpses._

"It happens," Slate shrugged. "But one Crow-Vigor is fine: some folks can stand the hallucinations even when they're not ready for them. Now, two of them? Are you sure you want the Shock Jockey? I mean, I'm sure I can find one of my guys who can—"

"Mr. Slate, what happens when someone has more than one Vigor in them?" Anna's question seemed innocent. It seemed, but the way her hands clenched hard against his arm told him another story. One extremely different story of how something bad was probably going to happen to him.

"Well…they usually don't live long. Something about cancer cells spreading around, many of the Comstock's guards become Handy-Men eventually, and really there aren't that many to begin with. Quite a few can't even properly use the Vigors too: they just 'run out'. Fink uses the Bucking Bronco to move crates, but has his workers drink it sparsely and only for large shipments. You run out of Salts and well…not a nice thing. It's like watching an alcoholic being fed only water…they die horribly."

"Slate, that's bullshit," Booker pointed out. "You've got nothing better to do than scare me? I've been without Salts in my body before: I'm still alive."

"Completely without, Booker?" Slate asked back. "Crows get them back by having their crows feast on living beings, did you know that? Firemen have their furnaces on the back because they're constantly filling up with Salts. Those are only the two more common, but you should know what they can do."

"Mr. Slate? What happens if you have more than two Vigors then?" Anna's hold was now outright painful, "Like, what if you have three? Or four?"

"Three is unheard of, lass," Slate muttered. "Four? Four would make a man a living monster, that's what."

"Well Slate," Booker murmured, "I'm willing to go on number Five."

"No!" Anna's denial came at the same time as her hands grasped the sides of his jacket. "You are not doing this!"

"What the hell?" Cornelius mumbled. "Number Five? You've got four Vigors in you? Corporal…that's…I mean…even if you did survive that, the hallucinations and the—"

"I've done this before, and I'll do it again," Booker remarked delicately grabbing Anna's hands and pulling them away from him. "I didn't know about it, but it doesn't matter. I'll be fine."

"Well, it's your funeral Corporal," Slate grimaced, as he took out from one of his pockets the Vigor itself. "Just…careful, all right?"

The purple Vigor looked sort of eerie in the light, but as he uncorked the bottle and began to drink it, he felt no different than all the times before. There was nothing strange to it, was there? No, there wasn't.

"See?" he mumbled after dropping on the floor the empty bottle, as his left hand sprouted the crystals of electricity, "Everything's fine."

"Mother of god," Slate murmured, his tone filled with awe. "You're one lucky son of a bitch, Corporal!"

"You're a fool, Booker, a fool." The frosty voice of Anna actually made him wince, as he turned to look at the back of his daughter, who had crossed her arms over her chest. Her shoulders were shaking as she said that. "Why do you want to die? Am I not enough to keep you living? I mean, we don't know each other really well, and maybe you'd rather have a different daughter than me, but—"

Cornelius had excused himself as his daughter's rant had begun, probably deciding to leave the two of them to their 'family' time while he went and discussed the plan better with his own men. The fact he'd probably take a big swig of alcohol after what he had seen wasn't lost on Booker, who supposed he could join the man afterwards.

"Anna," he began gently.

"And maybe you kind of hoped for a more lady-like daughter, or less pious, was it the fact that I believe in God that makes you angry? Because—"

"Anna," he coughed slightly to get her attention.

"Really, it could be a lot of things. Maybe I have a nervous tick you don't like? Am I too different from mom? Too similar? I read in a book once that if you resemble too much one of your parents the other tends to be—"

"Anna DeWitt," he said trying a stern tone…which was lost as the girl rambled on.

"If two Vigors can give you cancer, then what about five? You'd be dead by the end of the week I suppose. See Paris and die? Leave me alone in the world without you, right. I just found out I actually have a loving father and guess what? No, I can't keep him. He has to go and drink for God knows only why those damn Vigors when he could just forget about it and leave with me. Maybe he hates being around me? Am I annoying?"

"Anna!" he snapped at her, making her silent. She didn't turn around however, keeping her cold shoulder attitude on him.

"Anna, please look at me."

She huffed, but did not turn.

"Anna? I'm not talking to your back."

"And I'm not talking to you, Mr. DeWitt," she snapped back.

"Ouch, really?"

"Yes, really." She nodded curtly.

"You were such a cute baby," he sighed. "I'm sorry, but one day you'll understand."

She spun around faster than he could predict. Her hand making contact with his cheek before he could even realize what was happening. The slap had quite a bit of strength behind it, if the noise and the pulsing heat that spread was of any indication.

"What was that for!?" he exclaimed, holding his cheek.

"Comstock," she hissed. "He said those same words to me time and time again as I asked to be freed. You really are like him, right? No…" she murmured, "You are him. After all you can't make a pear into an apple, can you? You can change the color of a book, but the book remains a book."

Those words actually hurt. He closed his eyes taking a shuddering breath, before replying.

"Well…what did you expect? I never told you I was a good guy, did I?"

"I didn't know you were my father then!" she exclaimed back, as if that was an answer to everything. "I'm not letting you become him! Even if I have to scream and knock you out, I'm not letting you become Comstock or die trying to be the bloody hero of the revolution!"

"Uh? Wait, Anna I think there's—"

"No! I don't want you to die, not now —not today or tomorrow or in a week of time for what it matters! So please, please…let's leave, all right?" she whispered as her eyes, already red for the previous tears, began to churn out even more. "We can go to Paris, and you can tell me all kind of stories on you and me as a baby, and we can take pictures, lots of pictures, and then you'll tell me about mom and you, of how you met and everything else…but please, please stop doing this to yourself."

"Anna," he chuckled, shaking his head. "I'm not doing this for the Vox." He took a few steps forward, gently patting his daughter's head. "I'm doing this for you."

"Really?" she whispered.

"Yes, really."

"Then tell me how you knew about Paris," she pointed out. "Tell me how you knew I loved to be there: nobody knew. Tell me how you knew where the Shock Jockey was. Tell me how you seemed so certain Slate would listen, how you knew how to escape Monument Tower or how to crack a cypher without a code book. Tell me how you knew everything a Vox and a Columbia man should know…when you're not even —no, when we are not even from this dimension."

He froze.

He froze and he closed his eyes. His heart was beating then, as he suddenly found himself drowning and gasping for air. A hand, giant and of porcelain, grabbed him the next instant. He was flung outside. He began to fall. He held onto a blimp and ended up being brought further down, further alongside the air…and then the sides of the blimp began to break. He began to scream as he fell again, but just as he was about to fall off, fall down beneath the clouds, red roses stopped his fall.

He spun around blearily, moving towards the open arms of Anna who seemed dressed with the Lady Comstock's dress. The next moment, the Handy-Men's giant hand grabbed Anna by the waist, pulling her away. He fell.

He fell and nobody stopped his fall.

He fell and he recalled vividly every single second of fall until the ground met him with a sickening crunch…

And then, there was darkness.

Booker DeWitt groaned for breath, as he was shaken by Anna. He had fallen on the floor apparently, and as his daughter was screaming at him to wake up, he felt something strange. There was a tear on a nearby poster. Didn't Anna see the tear?

He slowly got into a seated position, his daughter holding him as she berated his stupidity.

"I told you not to drink it! Did you listen!? No! You didn't! Look at what you're doing to yourself, dad! Please stop! Let's leave…please," she whimpered as he wobbled on his feet. He moved towards the poster, his eyes narrowing as he looked at it.

It was one of the Prophet's posters, with his white beard and white hair. He gently touched it, his fingers passing through the Tear as if it was a pool of icy water.

"Dad?"

The poster was pulled through.

It no longer showed old Zachary Comstock staring at him.

It showed Booker DeWitt, with his hair _raven_ primed and gelled, his eyes stern and his face clean and shaved staring back with a tightly shut mouth in an expression of sourness and displeasure.

Words were written on the poster, not words of faith or joy, but rather a sort of Propaganda inspired theme.

_Vote Booker DeWitt, Magnate of DeWitt Industries, for candidacy over the Seventh Sector! Fair Wages and Jobs to all!_

"Dad?" Anna whispered. "What is this?"

He shuddered, his stomach churning over as Anna moved closer to him again. He felt his skin prickle and his eyes sting. He felt the clunking of gears that he knew belonged to the heavy steam engines that held Columbia aloft, but wait, didn't it hold itself up with Quantum Particles?

He reopened his eyes to the room where Slate had left both of them, blood-shot eyes staring back at him from the mirror he had in front of him. Wasn't there a poster there? Why was there a mirror now?

"Dad, please dad…" Anna's voice was pleading, truly desperate by then. "Promise me you won't take another, please?"

And to that…

To that he nodded blearily as he tore apart the poster he held between his hands.

But in truth…

He lied.

For if he did not follow through with the experiment, Rosalind would kill him. He just had to survive these…these hallucinations, these things that came to his mind. He didn't have many more Vigors to ingest. He could survive this. He just had to remind himself that nothing of this was real. He just had to.

So he turned and left, Anna standing by his side afraid he might fall over in any moment. He bleakly smiled back to her: always the worrywart wasn't she?

Cornelius' men were all standing at attention, a few Firemen among his troops churning out their heavy smokes from the furnaces on their backs. Who would ever live with a furnace strapped on its back? Was that the real reason? But then…what made him different?

What made him different from the others?

"It is interesting to see you are taking my advice by heart, DeWitt," the harsh tone of Rosalind's voice echoed, to his left, as he found himself looking at the woman with her back against the corner of the giant hall. She was heavily drinking from a bottle of Scotch, which she then crashed on the ground. "It is a good thing. I really like it when people understand." She choked down a sob. "Don't try and change it. Understood? Good. You always were eager to please," she chuckled.

He swallowed in silence, as Anna didn't seem to be noticing the woman moving closer. "Very well, I'll let you play the silent game. Let me tell you this however," she muttered. "I don't know what game you're playing at Booker, but you won't win. You hear me? The deck is loaded, and I know this future's carved in stone. You can't change stone now, can you? No, you can't. And even if you did manage, I've got other universes where I can make other you suffer. So play like a nice boy till the end, and everyone will be happy." She frowned slightly, her right hand cupping his cheek and absent-mindedly tapping it.

"Robert was right once again it seems…Vigors do carry their Quantum Dissonance throughout the course of the space-time continuum. Well, even better…you'll probably kill yourself by the last sip. I'd wish you luck but…well, you don't need it."

And then Rosalind disappeared…

Just as, from the hall of heroes' rooftop, Songbird came crashing down in the giant hall with a thundering screech.

**Author's notes**

…**The Plan is Complete.**

**I usually don't write with the plot stuff prepared. Really, I actually just 'go with the flow'.**

**I can honestly tell you that now I have seen the end, and it is Glorious.**

***begins to chuckle evil-like***

***Laughs out loud***

***satanic laughter***

**By the way, I forgot to answer a review written in the past:**

**There's no need to worry about 'fast updates' and 'suddenly stops'. I'm not 'posting Buffers'. I honest-to-god write all of this daily. Sometimes it might take two days rather than one, but really…these? They're daily written. Fresh out of the oven.**

**For a better 'Fridge-Horror' idea, go and read the Bioshock Wiki concerning the 'Cut-Content' and the stuff in the notes at end-page. (Like the Bathysphere being workable by Booker, when they are coded only to work for Ryan's genetic make-up.)**

**And of course, be prepared for yet another Songbird battle.**

**(Damn that bird is relentless!)**


	13. The Countdown to a New Year

Sometimes

Chapter Thirteen

"Slate! Get to the Airship with your men! I'll hold him off!" Booker snarled, as his left hand thundered with the Shock Jockey, attracting the attention of Songbird who seemed all too pleased in seeing him. With a swipe of the leather-covered claw the statue of Comstock was destroyed into large chunks, the debris crushing through the walls as large cracks began to appear on the floor.

"Father!" Anna screamed behind him, being carried out against her will by two of Slate's men.

"I'll be fine Anna!" he yelled back, aiming his shotgun towards the bird, who seemed to be bringing both his giant arms open wide around his body, as if to challenge him to charge.

"skit-skit-skiiiit!" the skittering noise of the monster's guttural verses was nearly deafening, as the beast crashed both of his hands against the floor, the chunks of concrete not enough to withstand the assault as they gave way.

Booker ran to the right, as Songbird charged through the massive hall, tearing apart the statues in their niches and destroying the base of the monument itself. This was the strength he had seen used when tearing apart Monument Island, the strength the beast had used against the Zeppelins…

This strength had to go.

He fired two more shots on the back of the beast, which spun around so fast with its wings that the gust of wind slammed against him like an air wall, sending him to tumble on the ground. He rolled back up, before running away from Songbird and deeper into the complex. He heard the beast screech behind him, as the pavement finally gave way and began to fall on the lower levels.

The twin claws of Songbird attached themselves to the safe chunks, the massive beast pulling itself back up as it looked with its red hued eyes at Booker.

The Devil's Kiss grenade impacted with strength against the bird's face, cracking his right glass eye. The thundering screech, soon followed by arcs of electricity running around the bird's body told him he had successfully pissed off the creature.

What more, this was something new. He had never seen Songbird do something like this the first time around, but as the bird opened its beak, Booker's eyes widened.

"Sh—"

He jumped to the side, avoiding a long ray of electricity as an overpowered Shock Jockey was sent back at him, at the same time transforming into the Jockey's crystals the spots on the floor and the wall it touched. Arcs of electricity literally surrounded Booker as he was faced with only three dead-ends. He could die in Peking, he could die in Wounded Knee or he could actually die through the torn doors that led to the Lady Comstock memorial.

The last one had three rooms one after the other. He could work with that he supposed.

As he began to dash through the torn apart doors, the stone archway that was holding Songbird back was broken, letting the beast pass through. Booker rolled just barely out of the range of the claws, as the screech of the beast came back to haunt him as he ran past the green gardens, ignoring the words that came from the speakers or the music sang. He held onto the Murder of Crows, hoping against all odds he wouldn't really need to…

The ground shook beneath his feet, as he stumbled bleakly through the third room. What he needed was a window or a backstage, or anything really that could bring him out.

A wave of heat suddenly made him sweat, as he blearily looked at the cracks of the walls sprouting flames. Another stumbling, another crash, and Songbird —covered in flames from head to toe— pounced at him through a hole the beast had made in the wall.

That was when Booker understood: the monster was using his tactics against him!

It was only luck —luck and a good dose of reflexes, that saved Booker from death by flaming claws. He fired a shot straight in the face of the enflamed Songbird, completely cracking apart the already broken eye and forcing the creature to divert the course, probably wracked by pain.

So instead of smashing Booker, only the beast's right wing crashed against the man's chest, breaking through the shield as he was flung in the air and against the hard stone wall of the third room. His breath was sucked out of his lungs as he could feel his entire skeleton crack beneath the strain.

Songbird instead crashed through the already proven ground, opening a hole and falling down in the pitch black darkness of the lower levels.

Booker collapsed on the ground, blood gushing out of his mouth as he coughed and spat. His vision blurred as the shield's magnetic effect slowly returned, resetting his bones through spasm of pain. He breathed in slowly, the pain of the act making him cry tears of frustration.

It hurt as if a train had decided to play ping-pong with his chest with a fellow friend —probably a mountain. He brought his hands close to him, as he slowly pushed against the floor to stand back up. The statue of the Lady Comstock had been ripped cleanly in half, as well as the library and much of the room itself was unrecognizable, if not for the carpet.

The carpet that just as he wobbled up on his feet…was pulled together with him through the chasm created by Songbird's passage in the room. Booker screamed as he fell down in the darkness, falling for miles as the lack of light showed a small bright dot at the end that grew until it revealed itself as a hole straight through the building and towards the air.

His hold on the Murder of Crows was proven worthwhile as he morphed into the flock and flew to the closest ledge, the fall broken as he landed roughly somewhere deep in the bowels of the Hall of Heroes.

"Welcome, citizen of Columbia!" a loud voice boomed at him as he wobbled back on his feet.

He blinked.

There, in front of him…

Were the mechanized vendors.

A small wood stairway seemed to be ascending soon afterwards, a Voxophone glinting on a crate half-open. He scampered as fast as he could towards the Vigor-Upgrading machine, putting the money inside hastily and pushing finally the button to receive the tonic-upgrader.

A small vial of a clear green color descended from the machine with a twirling of mechanisms, and as he uncorked it to drink it, he stilled.

Was this considered a Vigor, or wasn't it?

Possession that worked on humans was one of the bloodiest things that Columbia had ever birthed. Coupled with the fanaticism of the Columbian guards...the men and women of Columbia preferred committing ritualistic suicide from fear of being possessed by the False Shepard again, rather than just…leave.

Possession did not, per se, make people commit suicide. It just might show something horrible, but it was the person who held the choice of pulling the trigger or not…and all of them did.

This upgrade was more than powerful, it had many times saved his skin as he possessed the Beasts, or possessed in quick succession multiple enemies, killing them off and making them kill each other off. Yet…

"This isn't a Vigor," he mumbled to himself. "This is not a Vigor," he repeated as if it would enhance his words and make them true.

He took the small sip for what it was, and slowly felt his hand tingle lightly. He moved to press the Voxophone's play button, and sat down for a moment to catch his breath, as he fingered through his pockets for scraps of food he might have luckily picked up by chance.

Near the crate was a half-munched and hastily abandoned apple. He grabbed it and gave it a juicy bite as he listened to the Voxophone's creaky sounds.

_Always asking us to move stuff around. They don't want the machines out and about, but then again it's the fifth time they have us move the crates with the samples. The Prophet was mad when Fink gave out samples of Nostrums around the population. Said 'the faith of God cannot be bought with trinkets!' and we had to remove them all. I think he was just pissed Fink tried to sell Lady Comstock merchandises, what with her being dead and all._

_I'd be angry too._

Booker pushed the Voxophone aside, letting it fall on the ground as he pulled at the crate's upper side. He cracked the crate open, and then he blinked.

There were strings of red. The same type of scarf that the statue of Daisy Fitzeroy held between her hands, in that depiction of her preparing to strike down Lady Comstock. He actually wondered how they could sell, if such a thing had been conceded to circulate around…

The red slowly morphed to bright crimson as he touched one, before his hold on the string tightened. He felt the Bucking Bronco tonic boil…and as he flung it to try it out, the crate gently lifted itself up in mid-air.

With a flick of the hand…the crate _flew_.

So that was how the workers actually moved the crates from and towards the freighters. The speed of the crate was so high that it crashed against the wall, sending splinters to fly around.

He smiled slightly.

"Nice."

Then the ground around him cracked and splintered, as the Hall of Heroes above him groaned from the effort to remain intact even with a giant Songbird-sized hole through much of it. He cursed as he dashed up the stairs — quickly praying that wherever he'd end up it would be outside, or close to a crane or a Sky-Line.

He was not that lucky.

He stumbled upon the last flight of stairs, coming on the main floor with heavy iron doors blocked by steel locks —whatever was behind them had to be precious, he supposed. Next to the door, in a niche, a statue made of brass of Comstock seemed to be smirking as it held a sword in hand. The smile the statue held seemed to be taunting him about his inability to escape.

Booker's Sky-Hook tried to dent the door, but was not successful as the man cursed again, wincing as the effort made him short on breath. He looked at the statue next, and then at his hand and the red-blue string he had firmly tied to his right hand.

"Well, here goes nothing."

The next second, the statue of Zachary Comstock rose in the air, and with a surprisingly strong force, it crashed against the steel doors, denting them.

Booker screamed as he repeated the motion, using the statue as a battering ram to get through. It finally tore through, smashing apart the doors as the statue landed in a heap of deformed brass.

He stepped outside into a big hall, containing what seemed like heads. Many, many heads of Motorized Patriots stared back at him through the shelves, loose bits and pieces of electronics surrounding him.

There was another shake, this one stronger than before, soon followed by a spluttering sound as if an engine had just...died.

Booker's face paled nearly comically as he heard a triumphant screech so much glorifying Songbird. The monster was damn persistent now! He was glad the bird wasn't chasing Anna, but really, why did Zachary change his mind, and suddenly decide he had to go?

It might have been his words at Monument Island then?

Had that been enough?

Gravity seemed to disappear as Booker let out a loud scream, his body pushing him against the other side of the room as the shelves fell and the motorized patriots' heads flew everywhere. He found himself slammed hard against another wall, his head ringing as he bleakly focused on an incoming shelf.

Booker brought up the Bucking Bronco fast enough to stop the shelf midway, slamming it to the side. The wall creaked, but another shelf soon came down against him. He repeated the motion, the cracks starting to spread. He could make himself a way out…if he was fast enough.

"Work dammit!" he screamed as he forced another wave of Bucking Bronco to send the shelf against the weakened wall.

It broke apart then, showing him the outside and the sky passing by quickly. He jumped through, preferring not to 'sink with the ship' as the saying went.

As the Hall of Heroes plummeted to the ground, Booker found himself extending his Sky-Hook in hope for the Sky-Rail.

Songbird was behind him in a second.

He linked himself to the safety-rails just as the bird slammed against them. Songbird tore them apart and by consequence slowed Booker down, as the hook had to compensate for the change in inclination.

"Go faster!" he yelled as he pushed himself forward, hoping it might work.

Songbird pulled at the rails, his wings flapping without rhythm and one of his eyes oozing a sickening black liquid thick as tar, it seemed as if he was just hanging on because of desperation...

But Booker knew better.

The monster wasn't that easy to defeat, and he doubted anything but drowning him in the ocean would work. He should have gotten one of those instruments to control him sooner, rather than just dilly-dally around or get to Elizabeth immediately.

Now there he was, being pulled into the awaiting claws of…his eyes caught the movement of freighters incoming on a rail above them: he could use that.

His right hand moved to grasp at one of them, as the Bucking Bronco lifted it off the rail. With a sharp gesture of 'slam' the freighter fell straight on the head of Songbird, sending him to drop the Sky-Line as he plummeted beneath the clouds.

"_AND STAY DOWN_!" Booker snarled, as the Hook resumed its movement.

He breathed in and out slowly, as he opened and closed his right hand. This was a very, very useful thing. He could feel it…the Force was with him.

Booker dropped down from the Sky-Line and into the clearing of Soldier's Fields, the electrical generator seemingly repaired. There were a few corpses of Slate's men around, but many more belonged to the Columbia forces.

They had probably fought off one another.

As he pushed the lever to call back the hovering barge, he sighed in relief. The adrenaline left him weak in the knees, as he held himself with his hands to the safety-rail.

He could feel the sweat trickle down his back, as the dark blue robes of the Crows felt heavy upon his shoulders. He suspected he had probably quite a bit of work to do, but still…

He hadn't even faced off a motorized patriot to begin with that day.

"The Lord Judges," a mechanical voice wheezed behind him. He blinked. He closed his eyes as he breathed calmly.

"I—"

Possession turned the motorized patriot into a green hued friendly, who stilled right behind him. The rubber face it held displayed a smiling George Washington, but to him…they always looked creepy.

"Move there, _would you kindly_?" he grumbled, pointing to the broken ledge. The robot obeyed. He was nothing more than a slave to begin with, even though a machine was inferior to a man, so maybe calling it a slave was giving it more than it should demand.

He moved slowly in front of the thing, the cogs in its back still moving around. He took a deep breath, brought up his right leg, and then he kicked the mechanical monster out and down below.

"For family!" it screamed one last time, before plummeting beyond the clouds.

Booker sighed and resumed his wait for the barge. He gave a bored look over at the sea of corpses around him, before gently starting to look through them. Eventually somebody would come, and eventually somebody would start a fight…but till then, he might as well find something to eat.

He found a few bottles of salts, that he avidly drank to refill those he had lost, and then with a sigh of relief he grasped from a burly looking Firemen four vials of Morphine.

He made a lopsided smile as four became three, and as the barge finally arrived and he sat in it, hoping that Slate had kept Anna safe, he pushed the lever onboard again.

As the barge slowly moved…

_Why couldn't they understand?_

He was their leader.

He had guided them to Rapture. He had brought them to the city where the artist did not fear the censor, where the government did not exist, did not nationalize…and yet they did not understand.

Maddening beasts, once the source of intellectual thoughts and supreme poetical ability now reduced to blubbering and addicted beasts.

All because of the Adam. All because of Tenenbaum's research.

He held onto his golf club, flicking his wrist gently as he placed the ball in the hole. His office was immaculate, as if the rot and the stains that covered the rest of Rapture had not been able to reach it. He knew this was a lie of course, because they had.

They were just subtler about it.

Jack, the man from the surface, the agent of the American CIA or the Russian KGB…no, he wasn't either of them. He was stronger. If he had to hazard a truth, he'd say the man reminded him of his youth, of the time where he burned down forests rather than deliver them to moronic imbeciles who did not understand that 'what one has, one has the right to keep'.

He just hoped no other problem reared its ugly head up. He had an army, an army controlled by the pheromones he had ordered to be produced, an army that could give him the surface should he wish for it…but he didn't want the surface.

He wanted the glory of Rapture back.

There was a slight flicker of grey in his vision for a moment, as he stared through what looked like a tear in the space in front of him.

Another tired-looking man was on the other side. Bright blue eyes and a white beard, the look he held was the same as his…and truly, it was as if they were the same person as Andrew heard words he had never thought possible hearing before, especially not so abruptly and strangely, in his moment of need.

"Mr. Ryan? I have an offer for you…one that might solve all our problems."

And then Booker's eyes widened as he fell on the ground, retching in the corner of the gondola as it landed at its destination. The doors flew wide open a second later, as two of Slate's men walked in with their guns ready. They gave one quick look at him, before dropping their stance and helping him back up.

"It's Corporal DeWitt!" one of the soldiers exclaimed.

"He's alive! Lucky son of a b—" Slate's gruff voice was the most recognizable of them all, but amidst the cheers there was only one that truly made his heart beat faster.

"_FATHER_!" Anna barreled into his chest again, hugging him so tightly he could feel his poor abused bones creak again.

"Hey there," he whispered back softly, returning the hug for a moment longer. "Told you I'd be back."

"I know," she sniffled, as if she was holding back tears. "That's why I wasn't crying at all."

"Good to know," he chuckled. "So Slate, ready for Comstock?" he asked the old war buddy, his left hand remaining limp on Anna's shoulders. Was it a crime if he just wanted to keep her close?

He'd place her on his shoulders if he could hoist her up with enough strength.

"Corporal, let's get the fireworks started," Slate chuckled. "Tonight is a great night, Booker. Can't you feel it in the air?" the man began as he walked inside, Booker behind him. "Tonight we _write_ history Booker, tonight Comstock dies or we die, but no matter which hands will hold the pen of the winner, our names will be written nonetheless! Do you hear me, men!?" he screamed to his soldiers, who howled back in response.

"We survived Wounded Knee!"

Yells of 'yes sir!' mixed with undistinguishable cheers.

"We survived Columbia's tin men! We survived Comstock's treachery! We survived his slaves! Tonight, _this very night of the New Year_, we begin a revolution!"

Booker blinked as the rest of Slate's men roared their joy.

New Year night?

No, that didn't make sense. It wasn't the night of the New Year, it was…

What day was it, anyway?

The newspaper all marked the date as March Fourteen, didn't they? Hadn't they?

So why…why was it…

Slate's body was slightly greyish now, as Booker's eyes narrowed for a moment…but then it was gone.

It had to be a trick of the light, he supposed.

Only a trick, and nothing more…it couldn't be anything more.

So why was the dread pooling once more into his stomach? And why was the need to actually grab Anna and make a run out of the city suddenly sound so very much appealing in that moment?

If Wounded Knee had taught him one thing…it was to never underestimate one's own instincts.

**Author's notes**

**I could not resist the 'Jedi' reference.**

**The 'Nostrum' of Bucking Bronco is what I consider the logical answer to the E3 cut content of Elizabeth 'floating' Booker safely. Of course it also merges with the Elizabeth has 'psykokinetic' abilities.**

**If the 'form of fight' has not been understood yet, every time Booker faces Songbird, he takes something from the bird and earns a new Nostrum.**

**Just as if it was a 'game'.**

**That said, the reference to New Year is the day of the Rapture revolution. The date the 'game begins' isn't said, but the last entry in the newspaper in the Industrial Revolution minigame is the 13 March, so any day after that…(And I went with the 14****th****)**

**Another reference is the fate of the lonely 'motorized' patriot.**

**I actually never understood why Booker can't do that.**

**Possess one, move him near the ledge and then push him down.**

**It's not like they can fly now, can they?**

**I'm actually answering now by saying that no, there will be no Crossover with Bioshock. No splicers in Columbia and Vice-Versa. This was just Booker 'hallucinating' as usual…as realities start to **_**melt**_**.**


	14. The Alternatives and the Forced Choice

**Warning. Squeamish Chapter.**

Sometimes

Chapter Fourteen

He was moved in the back of the First Lady airship within minutes, Anna holding him up as he held his right hand over his face, blood copiously seeping down from it. He supposed having a bleeding 'runny nose' was the source of her fear. That and the fact she seemed to be already a skittering mass of nerves.

The back of the First Lady actually held a mannequin with the Lady Comstock dress attire, the one he knew Elizabeth had changed in eventually. He also saw what looked like various trinkets and seats placed near glass panels, as well as quite a few of those black and white 'viewers'.

He supposed people would actually take 'trips' on the thing. Slate's men scrambled inside without much of a fuss, giving him and Anna a wide berth as his daughter brought him even further in the back, helping him up a small metallic ladder that gave into one of the private rooms of the giant zeppelin.

Probably where Lady Comstock slept during long voyages, if there were any.

The mattress was soft as he was dropped on it. Suddenly he felt heavy, as if over a ton of armor had suddenly been bolted to his entire body, his skin felt grimy and encrusted with blood, the terrible sensation of metal nails digging through his flesh to his very bones made it all the more unnerving.

He looked at Anna's face, at her big blue eyes for one moment, and then all changed.

His left hand was a drill that had just recently stopped spinning, as it spluttered for lack of gasoline. His right hand held a giant gun —a Rivet Gun, he knew. His drill retracted, giving way to his hand covered in electrical sparks. Was that Shock Jockey? No, it looked different…It was different.

Thunder was replaced by fire, as the Incinerate plasmid burst through the flesh of an incoming splicer. The sizzling of the burning man was only the second most disturbing sound his ears heard. The first was the man's scream of pain as he drove one more rivet through the skull, splattering it all across the metal corridor of Rapture.

"Mr. B?" the soft spoken voice of a little sister came to his ears then, her delicate hands touching his metallic diving suit leg. He couldn't actually feel the contact —he probably would never— but it was enough to soothe something inside of him.

That was why he loaded an explosive cartridge in his crossbow, before blowing up the head of a Houdini who had materialized right behind the two of them.

It was gone the next instant, replaced with a giant hulk of smoldering blue flesh that pulsed with might and power. He was there with a wrench in his left hand, fighting against a colossus of Adam and Eve he had no idea on how to defeat. The Rivet Gun had proven ineffective and even the grenade launcher had finished its ammo. He had used everything and yet the monster was still there, still taunting him.

"In a certain kind of way, I am your family Jack!" the beast mocked him as Jack held his wrench tightly. Atlas, Fontaine…they were not his family. So what if he had been born only four years before, so what if his memories were nothing more than lies!? He wasn't fighting for a family he did not have, or for a higher purpose in the power and might of Rapture.

He was fighting for the little ones. He was fighting for the innocents of Rapture, for a better future for them all. So even if his only remaining weapon was a wrench…

He was not afraid.

"A man choses." Booker DeWitt whispered in front of the mirror, locking his gaze with that of the other man, younger and yet emitting the very same aura of controlled power that he too held. "A slave obeys," Andrew Ryan finished from the other side of the mirror.

Booker turned away from the mirror, his clean shaven face moving to the balcony where the people of his industries were waiting for him. He gritted his teeth and clenched his right hand around the frame of a small photo, one showing a baby in a crib, taken with the advanced technology of Columbia.

He gently caressed the picture within the frame, before dropping it back on the desk.

He walked outside, on the balcony, and as the population of Columbia looked at him with expectations etched on their faces, Booker DeWitt spoke.

"A man choses!" he roared, "A slave obeys! Too long have we bowed to Saltonstall! Too long have we believed in the words of the Founders! Too long have the Crows enslaved our friends! This ends now! For a future where we can be free, for a future where there is no America looming over us, holding us in check…I offer you the chance! Today, this very day! This very day of March we will change the way Columbia lives! I offer you all something powerful, something that not even Fink's Vigors can dare to achieve…I offer you…"

A wide red drape dropped from the balcony.

"_THE MIGHT OF PLASMIDS_!"

Booker's eyes snapped open there and then, his breath shallow as he jumped to sit up.

His heartbeat was erratic as he tried to understand what he had just seen. He had been…what had he been? What had he seen? The Booker he had heard talk…wasn't he the one from the poster? He was working with…Andrew Ryan? For what? And why wasn't he the Prophet? Why was he against the Founders and yet in Columbia?

And what about the picture of Anna on the desk?

He could imagine a future of him and Anna going to Columbia…but he had founded Columbia, hadn't he?

So…

Maybe in that future, Columbia remained tied to the American government. Fink worked for the government in holding the city with the Vigors, using the Crows as special police. He instead was the opposition, but rather than the simple 'Vox' movement, he was an enemy industry leader.

"Mr. DeWitt," Rosalind spoke softly, emerging from the shadows of the room, "We have to talk."

Booker looked at the woman with narrowed eyes, before feeling a soft stirring movement to his left. He turned his gaze back to the bed, where a tired Anna had her arms crossed in front of her face, and was peacefully sleeping with a basin filled with water and a wet cloth within next to her. Had she tried to nurse him?

"I'm doing as you asked," he whispered back. "Let her go."

"I am not here for this," Rosalind rolled her eyes. "I am sure you will uphold your end of the bargain, Mr. DeWitt. I simply removed all other possibilities from existing, like we —that is, me and Robert— did the first time around. There simply was no other way than a theoretically impossible yet actually achievable system of melding together all possible branches of difference following a choice so that it would always yield the same result. We 'pruned the branches' if it might be more feasible to understand."

Booker flinched. He had barely woken up from one of the strangest nightmares ever, and he was not in the mood to listen to the 'Lutece' talk so soon. That, and the only reason he wasn't firing on the woman was because he would wake up Anna.

"You will probably understand what I mean eventually," the woman scoffed. "For the moment, please concentrate on following the appropriately dealt hands."

"What are you speaking of?" he murmured, bringing up an eyebrow in surprise.

"Well Mr. DeWitt, before Comstock somebody needs to be murdered, wouldn't you agree?"

Rosalind moved her head slightly to the side, a smile etched on her lips. "While the choice on Slate's life or death was always in your hands… someone else's wasn't."

His eyes widened as he mouthed out.

"Daisy Fitzeroy."

"And Fink, do not forget about Fink," Rosalind chided him. "While Daisy held Mr. Fink's child and was ready to murder him, you had a choice didn't you? Send Anna through the vent or not…but you never really had another option, did you?"

The smile on Rosalind's face was starting to look eerily like that of a tiger already licking its lips in front of a juicy prey…and Booker didn't like it one bit.

"Worry not though…I took…precautions…" she took a step backwards, before her face slowly turned thoughtful. "If I were you, Mr. DeWitt…I'd hold tightly on Anna now."

"Wh—"

"_VOX INBOUND!_"

The scream barely managed to give Booker enough seconds of awareness to throw himself at Anna's still sleepy position.

"Dad!?" the girl exclaimed in surprise at being roughly woken up, "You should—"

"No time!" he yelled back as the zeppelin suddenly lurched to the side, a deafening explosion echoing above them.

"_THEY HIT THE BLIMP!_"

Booker held Anna tightly, looking at the wooden walls of the room.

"Trust me," he said, biting his lips as he lifted the bed with the Bucking Bronco, before slamming it against the side and tearing apart a hole.

"Dad? What's going on!?" Anna's voice was frightened, but he couldn't hug her and whisper that nothing was going on —he was busy saving the two of them after all— and there was nothing else but the hole now as their exit.

"Abandon the Zeppelin!" Cornelius' voice echoed through the speakers, as Booker himself gave a quick peek at where they stood.

They were halfway to the house of Comstock, having followed the planned road of the zeppelin. They were now extremely close to the Fink Industries, if not directly above them.

So that was what Rosalind meant with 'having taken precautions'.

The First Lady began to fall, as Booker eyed a Sky-Line going right beneath one of the many advertisements of a new Fink product. There was little choice.

"Beggars can't be choosers. Follow me!" he jumped outside, his Sky-Hook attaching itself to the rail as he fell towards the ground. Behind him he heard far more than a single 'click' as quite a few of Slate's men followed his very own idea and jumped out.

The moment he landed, he knew something was wrong.

There were tears, everywhere.

The greyish specks of alternate realities glowed brightly in their black and white colors displaying literal scenes of carnage. A black and white Booker DeWitt was marching over the very same bridge he and Slate's men had landed up in, as greyish Motorized Patriots began to fire.

In the 'real' world, the automated defenses of Fink's bridge appeared from their secret niches —things like automated rocket launchers, automated machine guns, automated Motorized Patriots— just as Fink's guards ran out from the double doors from both sides of the bridge.

Simply put, Booker was surrounded.

And Anna was right behind him, holding tightly to the back of his jacket.

"Well then, Mr. False Shepard!" a booming electrical voice chirped from the speakers all around the bridge. "It is nice to meet you for the first time! Did not enjoy the raffle?"

Booker bit his lips, trying to recall just what was it that he was missing from the 'hand' dealt. Anna didn't have the tears, so there was really no reason for…

Unless he was the one who could.

And if he was the one who could, then what mattered wasn't who did the thing, but that someone did.

What mattered was that someone had to move through reality, to another one, one where…

They were surrounded in this reality, but in the one that he was seeing through the specks of grey…they were marching in one direction.

"Anna, hold on to me," he whispered. "And whatever happens, don't let go."

"Dad?" she complied, and in the next second Bookers hands moved to the closest speck of grey —it wasn't even a tear, more like some sort of small spherical video-feed.

His alternate-self was flinging plasmids through it, sending back with what seemed like 'return to sender' a barrage of rockets at the automated defenses.

"False Shepard, are you listening to me?" Fink's voice did carry on a bit of the anger, probably at being ignored, but Booker concentrated. What was he meant to do? Anna always made it seem so natural, so easy to do…she simply placed her hands across it and widened the tear up. In this case however…

He felt a slight tingle as his arms began to erupt in light purplish sparks. The jet rammed itself against the sphere, and within instants…

Within instants, the grey sphere enlarged itself as it completely covered the entirety of the bridge, of the buildings nearby, and of Columbia by and large.

Booker fell on the ground on one knee, his nose running crimson with blood as he found himself encircled by Anna's arms, the girl scared but trying to put a courageous front for him, probably. Slate's men…they hadn't passed through. He supposed they had died.

Died a tin men's death, rather than a man's one.

Slate would have his life, should he return…he supposed 'this' Paris might be as good as another, as long as he had Anna with him…even though the girl seemed scared out of her wits.

She had a reason to be scared, multiple considering the Vox dressed members who were firing nature's wrath and the plasmid's strength at Fink's own security, who was taking extreme losses.

"Mr. DeWitt! Look!" a red-dressed man —his voice raspy and unpleasant— exclaimed as he had turned around to stare at what the disturbance was. The Alternate Booker DeWitt turned around then, his eyes stern and his face a feature of impassiveness. It was the look of a cold-hearted man hardened by hardships, or at least that much was what Booker felt. He was wearing a business suit, black with red lines and a blue tie.

And so it was that Booker DeWitt met Booker DeWitt.

"What is this? Two of you DeWitt!? Not only do you mock my Vigors, you even go as far as clone yourself!? This is preposterous and against the word of God! DeWitt! You should not play god against me!" a completely bald, with heavy signs of burns on his face Fink screamed from the projector, as hover-boats flew in the air from behind a few buildings, probably heeding the call to help the Fink Industries magnate.

The Alternate-DeWitt looked at him for a second more, before turning to the man who had yelled.

"Just move inside! Secure the rooms and get me Fink's child!"

Somehow, Booker's soul frosted over those words. It couldn't be possible now, could it? The Alternate-DeWitt walked lazily towards them, not even caring about the fact that they were in the middle of a fight zone, or of the incoming reinforcements.

The man just stopped in front of him, and from the inner lining of his suit he took out a crossbow. Booker's eyes widened as he remembered where he had seen the thing before.

"The marvels of Rapture, isn't that right, Mr. DeWitt?" his alternate spoke calmly, before turning his gaze to the incoming Hoverboats. He loaded an explosive dart, and then took careful aim. "Then again, you know and you do not know all the same, right?"

The trigger was pressed and the string released from tension, as the dart flew in the air with a loud set of beeps. It struck one of the Hoverboats' engines, where it detonated in a shower of flames. The Hoverboat steered to the side dangerously, collapsing into two sections as the men aboard fell to their dooms.

"You can't honestly be surprised," Alternate-DeWitt continued. "I mean, you knew we had to be somewhere, right? Us others, the ones that failed the cut, the ones that never made it into the tests, the ones that actually were discarded from getting Anna back."

"Dad? What is he talking about?" the girl asked in a tiny voice, her big blue eyes staring at him as he clenched his right fist.

"Nothing Anna, it's—"

"It isn't something you can keep on hiding, Booker," Alternate DeWitt spoke back as the second dart departed. The man's face was unfazed, even as the guards screamed their last screams of fear and prayers to god.

"They might use it against you, after all."

"What are you talking about?" Booker whispered, "Who is 'they'? The Lutece?"

"Well, at least you _understand_," the Alternate's smile was feral, if for a second. "You know why I didn't make the cut? My Anna…My precious, little daughter, the only thing I had to keep me sane, to keep me alive…she died. Do you know who killed her? My little baby girl, barely old enough to wobble around? Fink did. Oh yes, Fink wanted a very important deal with the Founders, you see, but he knew I would present something similar to his project, something better. I created the Vigors, not Fink, and yet look who's got the prize."

The man chuckled, shaking his head slowly. "The Lutece helped with that. Vigors are nothing more than the condensed radioactive waves of the liquid coolant used in the syphon, or should we call it…generator? It comes to term that their first experiments were done without any Anna around, to provide the energy with a low cost investment…so they did need an energy source. The circle of life I suppose," Alternate brought his right hand forward, displaying a circle of chains with the letters A.D. written upon it.

"The chains of industry, one pulls the other and together they form an unbreakable chain, an unbreakable will: the strong, the cunning, the smart survives. That I learned as I held the drowned corpse of my baby girl to my breast as I cried my last tears, Booker. Drowned by the members of the American Government, who for all of their 'high and mighty' talk were nothing more than politicians willing to do anything, to get their hands on the toy known as Columbia."

"Why are you telling me this?" Booker whispered, "Why are you—"

"You must understand Booker," Alternate spoke again. "That where Infinity exists, so does the hubris, the arrogance, of violating the most fundamental law of them all." His eyes turned sorrowful as the Alternate him looked at Anna with what seemed like longing. "She would have been all her mother, I suppose." He wistfully made a small smile, before snapping his fingers as flames lambed his palm. A cigar was soon taken out, lit and brought to his lips.

"I was asked a question once, Booker. The question was very simple, yet the answer was not. What is infinity? Infinity…Infinite solutions, perhaps? Infinite inventions? Infinite worlds? And then something dawned on me, something heart-rending that made me shudder down to my very core. Infinite possibilities meant infinite good things like my Anna being alive and infinite negatives, like my Anna being held prisoner, but then my mind kept on thinking and thinking, and I realized what the problem was…"

There was a long moment of silence as the man grimaced.

"Those things, those realities…they weren't supposed to be real. You get only one chance at life: it's not like a Dimwit game where you put coins and keep on playing. The mere concept of Alternate me running amok made me question why they never made contact with me in person. Was I different? Was I the same? It was then that I realized that they probably already did make contact, if they based themselves upon the laws and the rules of their worlds…" his left hand turned into a frosty consistence, as he froze the cigar out of his mouth.

"Every universe has laws. Plasmids work on Eve. Vigors work on Salts. Are they the ancestor of the other, or is it like the chicken and the egg? And what if they aren't? What if, truly, there actually isn't an answer? I know…" he sighed, shaking his head slightly. "I know that I know not. So, understand this Booker, I am sorry for what you will have to do, but it is the only way I know to end this all...this is my answer."

Alternate's Broadside came into view then, and that shook off of his daze Booker as he pulled himself in front of Anna. "What are you—"

And then Alternate brought the Pistol to his temple.

"You made this choice of death once, didn't you Booker? And what did you obtain? Nothing! The reason was not the choice, but the _who_. It never was about Comstock! It never was about Anna! It never was about Booker DeWitt and his Wounded Knee actions…I never was there! I never enlisted, never enrolled, never participated! Booker DeWitt never fought that battle here, in this universe!"

"Boss, we got the boy and his father," one of the Vox spoke from behind the smiling look of the Alternate DeWitt, who brought his pistol away from his temple and turned half ways.

Anna tensed as her hands clasped tightly around Booker's arm. Fink's child was crying, as Alternate-DeWitt brought his pistol down on Fink's head.

"An eye for an eye Fink! An eye for an eye!" he punched the man with his left hand, "You thought yourself all mighty and protected huh!? Well, I have news for you! You aren't _god_!"

"Dad!" the boy's voice screamed as he cried for the fate of his father.

"And you know what, Fink?" Alternate-Booker smirked as he pulled the gun straight in front of the man's wide eyes. "This is for Anna."

Booker's eyes widened as he tried to move forward, but strong and firm hands held him back. He turned his gaze aside for just a split second, to look into two giant Handy-Men's hearts-jar, the two monsters of metal and flesh holding him still.

"For Anna," Alternate whispered.

And then the gun shot.

Fink's child fell on the ground lifeless, as the industrial magnate screamed.

"DEWITT! NO! HE WAS—"

Alternate Booker slammed the broadside on Fink's face again.

"Like my Anna was!" he screamed back. "Like your workers children are! Yet you didn't care about sending them inside your machine did you!? To clean the cogs and swipe away the grime, not caring their bones would be crushed! Not caring at all for the cries of their mothers! You didn't care! So look now, Fink! Look how much I care about you!"

Another punch, a sharp crack as something broke, probably Fink's face.

"You think life is made for you to profit on it? You think Columbia your toy and its people your personal working bees? Well think again! _They are not_!"

Another punch, this one brought forth by Alternate Booker's hand covered in icy tendrils, that left deep gashes upon the man's face.

"And now, Fink, give us a show of how a monster dies, as I show you what working bees really are like!" and with those eerily spoken words, Alternate Booker's hand morphed to display a hive of bees. His hand touched the face of Fink, and as the loud screams echoed on the bridge, not a single person spoke at the gory sight of the swarm of insects feasting on the man's face like hungry locusts.

The screams were soon muffled by the amount of insects, and once Alternate Booker's hand came away, Fink fell on the ground with a dull thud.

Dead.

He could hear the retching noise next to him, and Anna's gasps of horror as her hand held her mouth.

"Let him go," Alternate-Booker spoke with a soft voice —and at his command so did the Handy-men obey. "There is no god here, among us." He added then, turning to look at the crowd of assembled individuals.

"Only men."

"DeWitt!" a man screamed from the crowd.

"_DeWitt_!" another yelled.

"_**DeWitt**_!" soon a thunderous crowd of Vox screamed in joy.

Booker was holding Anna by the shoulders, the girl's skin pale and glistening with cold shivers. She was spilling down tears and trying desperately to keep the noises out by holding her eyes shut.

"Bring me away from here Mr. B, please," she whimpered. "Anywhere but here."

"Not yet," Alternate-Booker remarked, throwing on the ground and towards them two blue-colored Vigors.

"You have to drink, Booker."

"What?" Anna's eyes widened at the implication. "No!"

"Hold her," Alternate snapped curtly, as one of the Handy-Men pressed the girl's shoulder down with his giant porcelain hands.

"I'm sorry," the giant hulking machine whimpered.

Booker spun around, ready to unleash the Shotgun from his side, when it was literally ripped out of his hands by his Alternate Self.

"Telekinesis," he supplied as if talking to a child. "Really useful, but now…"

Booker felt himself being pushed down on the ground, his mouth held open by pinching his nose shut. He tried to fight them off, but the Handy-Men just didn't seem to feel fatigue. As he gasped opening his mouth for air…Charge was chugged down his throat.

His body began to feel tingly, as if electricity was pouring through him.

Undertow followed next, and as he felt the electricity literally reach the point where he could feel all of his muscles succumb to spasms and his throat parch, he concentrated on to it, pushing the water of the Vigor on the outside and sending the Handy-Man on a short-circuit. The hold lessened, he punched Alternate Booker on the face, screaming in rage as he flung another jet of water at the other Handy-Man, the one that held down Anna.

It screamed in pain as electricity danced on his flesh, the hold on Anna dropped as the girl hastily pulled herself up.

He was holding her within a second, his machinegun facing his Alternate self.

"We're leaving," he hissed.

"Please," Alternate-Booker nodded as he spoke. "Be my guest."

And then a wave of force slammed into both of them as the Alternate DeWitt brought both of his arms forward towards them. The Greyish color that always displayed the passing through a Tear brought them once more in Columbia, free-falling as it was downwards.

Booker pivoted on himself, grasping at Anna's waist as he hooked himself to a crane, before letting the momentum make him swing and jump down on the ground in the middle of Shantytown. He gurgled and coughed, his breath coming and going erratically.

"Dad!" Anna's exclamation was soon met with her hands going to his face, their gaze meeting. "Please breathe, slowly. It's all right," he felt his chest constrict, as he stumbled and fell on the dirty floor. "I'll take this," she whispered, grabbing his machine-gun.

"N-No…" he choked out, but his muscles didn't even want to obey his orders, much less…

There was a light sound of water dropping from the ceiling…

Anna grimly stood and pulled him up through some stairs…

Metal corridors and glass panels showing the underwater sea of Rapture…

A dingy looking room —dirty and filled with more insects than he could count…

A Gatherer's Garden, a Little Sister's vent nearby…

Anna's determined face as she stood guard over his body…

The door creaking open, Anna exiting the room…

Gunshots…

Gunshots…

Where was he?

_Why ask where, when the correct question is when?_

He blinked.

Was that…

Robert Lutece stared at him with a mixture of curiosity and eagerness, his arms crossed over his chest as he waited patiently for him to rouse.

The room was more like a metal cube, with Securis-built doors and glass panels showing the underwater scenery. This was unmistakably a Rapture environment, as the decadence of the stuff being rubble around and the strange looking mechanisms of a…Circus of Value, glinted in the corner.

"Where—"

"Mr. Booker," Robert scolded him with a scowl on his face.

"When?"

"Nineteen sixty, Mr. Booker. Forty-eight years since you reached Columbia, but still twenty-four to go before Anna comes down with her army to drown in flames the sins of men." Robert looked to the floor, before adding. "And what sins, terrible sins, did they commit…two wars, millions dead, terrible prices to be paid…terrible sufferance fruit of ideas, horrible ideas that the human mind shouldn't ever be able to birth and yet does with a frighteningly easy quantity."

"Where is Anna?"

"Which one?" Robert asked back curiously. "You see, I am a bit lost in the events of the world, _there wasn't much of a choice after all_, it was this or playing with the cards shown…and you can't play poker with the hands in display now, can you?"

Booker frowned as he slowly took a step forward.

"Listen here, I am not in the mood, I just…I mean…what I saw was—"

"Horrible? Maybe. It still is something of your potential, something that you could come, with time, to realize, Mr. Booker. Understand this: infinite universes display nothing more than the infinite potential the human race has and could theoretically come to obtain…but we cannot have that. You can't make of mortal men gods: it is against the principle of things."

"Uh…I actually understood that."

"It is not a surprise. You are growing, Mr. DeWitt —not as a man of course but as a thinker. Events shape the individual, or is the individual that shapes the event? You have seen another you for the first time, right? Minor differences, minor changes…and yet he easily killed a child in front of his father's eyes for revenge. That is you Mr. DeWitt, and yet is not at the same time. Now the loaded question that I must ask you is…_did you have a choice, back there?_"

"What? No! I was pinned down! If I had acted earlier, but I didn't—"

"Wrong," Robert shook his head. "You had choices, Mr. DeWitt, but you simply could not use them. You didn't realize you held a Shotgun until your alternate self was ready to take it away, but I can hardly fault you. Rosalind is a sour loser: when she's about to lose, she starts cheating."

"Wonderful," he mumbled. "Even mind-controlled, now?"

"No, hardly." Robert snorted. "By merely erasing from existence all possible realities where you make a different choice, she simply knows that you will take only the one available to you."

"I could kill myself."

"Wonderful example of sacrificial stupidity. Was it Comstock there on the bridge? No, it was Booker DeWitt. Luckily time and space is easily stretchable and surprisingly resilient: the choices will grow back, no matter how much Rosalind tries to prune them."

"So what, I'm to walk over to the executioner's block?"

"No, Mr. DeWitt, by moving you in another reality we sent you on a road that would give you the same chances as the original one, but what I hoped was that the foreknowledge of events would shape you up into a different entity. That was proven true when you understood sooner that I could possibly hope what it meant, you see Mr. Booker, understanding is the key, but not the lock, to opening the door to the truth. The problem, the only problem which remains… is that you are following a line you should not be following. You are on a rail you should be free of."

"A man chooses."

"Indeed…Jack Ryan had _choice and freedom_. True unblemished choice between savior or monster, and his fate was his to decide. Subject Delta had choice, but not freedom. He was destined to die at the end, his fate was already written, but how he lived up to that point, what he left for the world afterwards…that was his to decide. You on the other hand…"

"I had neither."

"Exactly Mr. DeWitt. Your choices did not matter. Your future was unneeded and unnecessary. All that mattered was your existence and you moving alongside a rail we prepared for you. A rail we set to see how far we could stretch and how far we could reach. Even Anna's powers pale in comparison to what Rosalind and I can achieve, which explains how she is kept prisoner within a self-looping circle."

"What?"

Robert smiled slightly.

"Your very own Anna, Mr. DeWitt, your daughter with her lost phalanx and who held the power to march across dimensions, the one you seemingly believe to have destroyed in your ritualistic desire to achieve the ultimate death of Comstock…she is very much alive and around. Looking for you as we speak I might add."

"What was that about the loop?"

"Well, every time she uses her powers to open up a tear in reality, we swap it with another place within the same universe she inhabits. Thus instead of going to an alternate world with a capitalistic China, she ends up in Russia. She believes her powers are moving her to worlds were only minimum changes occur, whereas in truth she hasn't moved at all."

Booker's Carbine was up and aimed at Robert the moment the man finished speaking.

"Bring me to her."

"Why would I?" Robert replied, "Why should I, when you can do so yourself?"

Booker brought up an eyebrow, as Robert merely chuckled.

"If you wish her back, you will just have to reach Andrew Ryan's office here in Rapture, and open up the tear within…I would wish you luck, Mr. Booker, if only luck weren't outdated."

"What about the other Anna?"

"Uhm? What about her?"

"The one with the intact finger. The one I—"

"Oh, you mean the one you told was your real daughter? I suppose she is rotting away in Comstock's house, already ensnared into the bindings tied to her very spine…poor girl, but not that there was anything you could do."

"Bring me back," he pleaded.

"I can't." Robert replied with his gaze softening up. "I could, but I can't. You need to understand, Booker. You will lose everything, as always, if you tie yourself to that Anna. You will fight Slate again, just like you did the first time around, when you ended up giving him the final-shot in the head in the interrogation room. You will find the Return to Sender Vigor. You will battle Handy-Men and Comstock's bests. You will kill Comstock. You will destroy the Vox. And then, that Anna will drown you. On the other hand, if you choose your old Anna, then you are free. That is the reason I held her back, rather than let Rosalind kill her. I know you might find it terribly useless coming from me, one of your…jailers? Captors? _Gods_? But this…this is for your own good."

"How is this for my own good!?" Booker snarled back at him. How he wished he could just backhand the man.

"You can guide _your_ Anna back to your world, Booker. She will become pivotal in the events of that universe, in the right time, and you will mount an assault on the facility that holds the other Anna prisoner. You will free her, and when _that_ moment comes…" his voice trailed off, as his eyes unfocused.

"What use will tearing down the monument a second time be?"

"One plus one makes two, Booker." Robert cryptically spoke. "But if two plus _six_ makes one…then not even a god may withstand the merging of the worlds. If all of them…Instead of _opening_ tears, maybe you should tell _the_ Anna…to start _closing_ them."

There was a loud thunk from behind the door.

"I smell fresh meat!" a loud raspy voice screamed. "Fresh meat!"

Booker spun to the sound, and when he returned his gaze to where Robert was…

Of course the man had disappeared.

Of course.

As the Securis Door slowly opened up, to reveal the hook wielding Splicer, Booker DeWitt ground his teeth.

Fine, he'd get his Anna back.

He just hoped the other one would forgive him.

Booker winced as he fired his machine gun straight in the chest of the Splicer, the bullets bouncing off at the thick-scaled skin of the monster in human form.

He wondered, as his Sky-Hook managed to pierce through the neck of the Splicer, when did his 'daughter, Anna' become the 'other Anna'. Maybe since the beginning?

He had chosen the Anna as a surrogate for the real thing, hadn't he?

It was in that moment, that he felt like the lowest worm in the history of worms…but he still had a mission to accomplish, didn't he?

And so he left the small bunker, leaving behind a buzzing Vita-Chamber as he realized he was pretty much lost in an underwater city of which he knew nothing…nothing at all.

What could go worse?

The skittering noise of an enraged Big Daddy —_that_ was what could go worse.

**Author's notes**

**Alternate Booker is Angsty.**

**Anna and not-Anna-but-Anna meeting is going to be fire and sparks. "HE's MY daddy!" "No! He's MY daddy!"**

**Robert is cryptic as always…and that's where he went. To Rapture!**

**Never the 'where' always the 'when'.**


	15. The Choice of Slavery

Sometimes

Chapter Fifteen

The drill tore through the face of the Splicer in front of Booker like its head was made of butter. A giant hulking creature, wrapped within an iron diving suit, looked at him with a ghastly yellow glint from its visor. Its right hand pointed at him, displaying for a brief moment the Greek symbol of the Delta on its gauntlet's back.

Booker swallowed nervously, as he brought up his own right hand to show the bad burn scar he had done to himself with a candle. The beast lowered its drill and nodded, before tapping heavily against its chest.

"You're…Delta," Booker murmured, as he took a hesitant step forward.

The Big Daddy nodded stiffly, before pointing towards the side, where the corridor seemed to proceed towards another Securis door, passing by a few shops with their broken glass panels and their general mess of rubble scattered all around.

"Should I…follow you then, big guy?"

The Big Daddy clanked a nod, before moving his heavy steps forward. Booker's gaze went to a small glinting object near the broken glass shard. It seemed like a blue colored syringe, its tip gleaming. Was that some sort of morphine?

**Eve**.

He blinked. Had the giant man talked now? He didn't recall big daddies could talk —actually, he didn't even know he knew those things were 'big daddies'.

**Not talking.**

"If you aren't talking, then why can I hear you?" Booker commented as he nicked the Eve Hypo —you never knew when something apparently useless could turn useful: better be prepared.

The Securis door opened with a twirling of cogs, showing yet another horribly abandoned and filled with water corridor. Cracks were on the glass panels near the windows, where small rivulets of water ran their course to the drains on the floor.

"My precious…" a voice hissed as hooks clanked against metal. "I hear it…I smell it…Adam?"

Loud rasping noises, as if a giant nose was just inches away from him, reached Booker's ears.

That was when Delta spun around and flung his drill a few hair breadths from his cheek. Booker stood eerily still as the big daddy's weapon made contact with flesh, and even as he could hear the bones caving in and the muscles being torn from a face, a human face, right a few millimeters away from him…he did not turn.

He took out his pistol and took aim in front, where a Splicer screamed as he appeared from around the corner. Booker swallowed his anxiousness as he fired. The bullet flew in the air, before outright ricocheting against the thick spliced skin of the thing in front of him.

He was without Shotgun, he was without Machine-Gun…

**Electricity is the same everywhere.**

As Electro-Jockey uncharged against the Splicer, who began to froth and scream obscenities from its spasms, Booker snapped back.

"How are you _not_ talking to me if I can hear you!?"

**Synchronization of thoughts possible on the same level as bonds. We are thinking the same things, what you believe my words are merely the by-product of your subconscious theorizing what I would say would the occasion grant me the chance to speak.**

Booker blinked as he decided to use the Sky-Hook to decapitate the enemy Splicer. His multi-bladed tool had been powered with the Nostrum, and if it could wound Songbird…then it could wound a Splicer too.

"You're a bit too on the professor's side for a hulking metal tin-can!"

**I take offense. I am you, so you should take offense of your own words.**

"You're an alternate me: understood? An _alternate_ of me."

There was a flare of purple gas, a shower of red petals…and a fireball, all in front of Booker within the next instant.

"Houdini!" he screamed as he found himself back to back against Delta.

**I have Spider-Splicers, want to change?**

"Swap!" his Carbine came into his hand as he shot at point-blank range in the eye of a Spider-Splicer. He needed a damn bayonet on the thing for the love of god! The bullet flew through the eye of the splicer, tumbling around the brain of the once-man and making the creature fall twitching on the ground as it bled from the head wound.

The second shot made a Spider-Splicer on the ceiling still and hiss.

"Adam will be ours!" it screeched as it descended right on top of him. Mere inches from him, and the gauntlet-armed hand of Delta grabbed the Splicer in mid-air, before slamming his head against the other drill-hand…a working drill-hand.

That reminded him of the first time he had gotten the Sky-Hook. Same amount of splattered brain-matter on the floor, and same sound…it was still giving him nightmares.

"You know, I'm starting to like Columbia!" he exclaimed.

**Take one of their pistols, you imbecile.**

"Now that's just rude!" Booker snorted but obeyed. "What does the red colored ammo do?"

**Anti-Personnel. Hit the flesh and let them do the rest.**

"You know, I'm wondering if this is the start of a beautiful friendship," Booker muttered as he found himself being outright flung inside a half-destroyed bar, as just the spot he had been before was suddenly hit by a stomping giant brute, with thick muscles and whose size actually dwarfed that of Delta.

**Brute Splicer. High regeneration and thick armor. Needs heavy weaponry to deal with. **

The bar held little in cover and against something like that Booker doubted anything less than a five-inch thick metal plate would work, but had a lot of wood —quite a lot of wet, soggy and rotting wood.

"I'll make the fire to dry him up!" as the Devil's Kiss grenade began to charge, "Keep him busy!"

He didn't need a sort of 'psychic connection' to understand that the Big Daddy had scoffed at his words. The Rivet gun fired as Delta moved sideways, taking the attention of the brute splicer who seemed extremely happy to smash against someone…as the man did.

It roared as it charged against the man in the diving suit, tearing apart chunk of the wood pavement as he stomped furiously on it —revealing the metal plates beneath— to reach Delta. His enormous arm slammed against the Big Daddy's suit, the metal outright creaking and bending as Booker's alternate was flung backwards against the wall.

Delta-Booker crashed and fell on the ground, the medical Adam-enhanced liquid already flowing through his suit to stabilize and heal him. Incinerate reached his hand as he began to burn the monster of Adam in front of him. On the other side, Booker's Fire Grenade finished charging.

The ball of fire and flames flew in the air, before slamming itself against the wood furniture. An acre and black foul odor began to sweep the bar, as plumes of smoke began to rise. Booker coughed as he moved towards the exit, the sound of clashing drill against bones reaching his ears.

A few seconds later, Delta hit the Brute again, sending him to tumble backwards and then hurried outside.

Booker's Bucking Bronco came to his hand as he levitated the entire burning furniture in the room, before making a single hand gesture.

The burning furniture came forth as a wall of fire against the exit, blocking the Brute from leaving the bar… well, that _had_ been the theory. The Brute roared as it charged through the wall of flames, uncaring about wounds or even burns.

Delta actually groaned as he began to run next to Booker towards the following door.

"How do you manage!?" Booker screamed as they passed by the door, which closed behind them and was soon slammed against the Brute…denting the door.

**You get used to it.**

"I think I got the better city…and since I'm talking about Columbia that says it all." Booker snorted —he never would have thought to say those words…and actually mean them.

They had ended up in a sort of hall, filled with Bathyspheres of all type and kinds —probably a crossroad of sorts. Torn suitcases hung around, bits and scraps of rubble and what once were hastily made cots.

"This will bring me to Ryan?"

**Us.**

"You're coming too?"

As if to reiterate the point, Delta opened up the door of one of the bathyspheres, before entering with a loud groan. How the thing didn't start sinking was a mystery, but Booker wasn't going to speak about it…he just entered after the man in the suit, before closing the door behind him.

The brass lever glinted in the dim light of the cramped space, seemingly even smaller due to the tall and imposing figure who was even comically trying to shrink itself on one side.

"Why?"

**Curious. I never met Andrew Ryan before.**

Booker said nothing, as he pulled the lever back three 'clacks'. Etched on the base were the numbers of stops to be done before reaching the Ryan's Offices: there were names like Arcadia, Fort Frolic and many more all inscribed around. The sphere buzzed before slowly submerging itself.

"We're not going to emerge in a sort-of strange metaphorical place with thousands of lighthouses right?"

Delta just looked at him for a second, his visor silent as no thought reached Booker's mind. There was an awkward pause, before Booker just…sighed.

"It's just…this is the first time in what seems like days that I got to sit down."

The man chuckled grimly. "Strange, huh? I was running, fighting, breaking bones and what-not…worked for Pinkerton you know: it's a global agency that makes sure rioters in industries go back to their work…sometimes with a bruise to make the message stick. They never called me again after a while —strange, because it's for life the contract— and I ended up as a private eye…and you won't believe it, but I had enough to support my family in the beginning." Booker shuddered.

"It's strange, but…I just…I hit and maimed other fathers, so that my own wife and future child could lead a better life. I made many kids cry over their bruised parents and I'm sure I've been cursed time and time again but…but I did all the same, for Mary and for Anna…"

Booker trailed off, before catching his breath.

"And in the end I lost Mary, and ended up having to take care of a newborn baby. Me, who barely was able to scrape by…you know, I was always inches away from giving her away to some orphanage, and I suppose that when a rich folk came by and offered to pay all my debts, only for my daughter…well, I thought 'Booker, you did shit with all your life, do the right thing for your daughter at least: give her to somebody who will care for her'…what life would she have had otherwise? A drunken father? A life of misery, that's what she would have had…"

Booker's voice grew in tone, as Delta simply stared at him in silence.

"And yet I went back for her," he whispered that part. "I knew she would be better cared in the hands of someone else, heck I probably didn't even think what would have happened next: hounded by the debt collectors and all, really a bright future for Anna…but I just wanted her back, she was my daughter…mine. Her tiny body was so warm between my hands and the way she looked at me…the way she looked at me as she passed through that portal…like I had abandoned her. There just…" he closed his eyes for a moment. "There just aren't words to describe how rotten I felt."

He shook his head slowly. "And now…Now I don't know. What if…what if she just hates me? What if she's just…angry at me, or doesn't want to talk with me. I'm not talking to some Anna of some universe…it's Elizabeth here, Anna, the one that knows and…and what if she doesn't even want to consider me her father? What if she's looking for her real one, one of the many Bookers who died to save her? I just don't know…"

Booker slammed his right fist against the comfortable surface of the bathysphere's bench. "I'm horrible. There's a girl in one of the universes who is hurting and dying inside because I will not be there to save her. She will hope, and she will be betrayed by that hope. I'll never go back to save her, because you can't travel through time, only through universes where Time is further forward or further backwards…never truly back in time in your own dimension…wait," he blinked.

"If we consider time as an unchangeable constant then we need something to relate it to, right?"

Delta just stared.

"So _time_ can't be changed. I mean, they can try all they want, but I lived through the events of the first time, so I am naturally older mentally than I would be normally, right?"

Delta remained silent.

"So time cannot be changed. Then, if we consider that, all that I need is go back to the same-precise universe and reach for Anna, wherever she has ended up, rather than simply go to a multiverse where she is already trapped by Comstock."

Delta's visor shone a bright yellow light as it moved slightly to the right in a querying pose…probably.

"So why did Robert want me to go to another multiverse? Why not just the normal one?"

Booker frowned, what was so important that it required…

"One plus one makes two…maybe he wants two Annas, or two Elizabeths…already jaded? Why would he want that? What is there that needs them both…"

He looked at the big daddy to his side, before slowly moving his gaze upwards as he breathed in.

"Hey, you have a daughter too, right?"

Delta rumbled.

"What if you…had another daughter, perfectly identical to the first one…who isn't your actual daughter, but she kind of is too… like, two of them, the very same. Would you love them the same no matter what?"

Delta grumbled.

"I mean, I…I just don't know what to do. Do I tell her? She'll have to know when she comes around and sees the first Anna —right?"

**There is head and there is tails…but the coin does not change.**

Booker blinked.

"So…they're both my daughters?"

**Eleanor is my daughter, but the other little sisters are my daughters too.**

Booker let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding.

"I have two daughters."

**It was not difficult.**

"Oh yeah," Booker snorted. "You're not the one roped into a rat experiment by two mad twins."

Then again, there could have been more than…more than…

More than…

Booker's eyes widened.

"Why are there…only two of them?"

Delta stilled for a second, before shrugging.

"No, you don't get it. Why are there only two Lutece? Shouldn't there be Infinite amounts of them? If there are only two of them…then it's obvious that…"

**They merged with their other selves?**

"Yeah, there's no other reason, but if they did then how do you explain all of…all of this," his arms went up to encircle 'Rapture'.

"There should be a Lutece-Rapture, right?"

**Could we do the same?**

Booker froze. The suggestion wasn't bad, but…

"But what of the others? What of your daughter, or mine…what of the rest? I mean…what would happen?"

**No risks no gains.**

"The last risk Andrew Ryan did, by nationalizing Fontaine Futuristic, cost him quite a bit."

**You're a gambler, are you not?**

"And you aren't?"

**No. I am a Father, a Gatherer of the Little Sisters.**

Booker frowned.

"I'm a False Shepard, apparently."

Somehow, Delta emitted a set of low grumbles that seemed akin to laughter, as the giant man sealed in the diving suit looked at him once more.

**You're a Gatherer too, Booker. You're a Savior and a good man: never forget that.**

"Thanks…I guess."

**No, Booker… thank **_**you**_**.**

Then the bathysphere began to ascend, and as it reached the end and the starting hall to Ryan's Industries, Booker opened the doors and walked outside, expecting for Delta to follow him.

The Big Daddy just waved at him, heading in a different direction —near the wall where a hole was— and banged against it.

A small, extremely gaunt looking and yellow eyed girl emerged from within it, dressed in a white and blue dress.

"Is it time now, Mr. Bubble?"

Delta just groaned like a whale at the girl, who cheerfully smiled and exclaimed then. "Pick me up Mr. B!"

The suited man did just that, putting the frail girl on his shoulder before waving once more in his direction.

"Didn't you want to meet Ryan!?" Booker exclaimed as the hulking creature moved towards a Securis door, far away from Ryan's office.

**I already did.**

And then the Big Daddy was gone, leaving Booker to stare perplexed at the closing door. The man from Columbia clenched his fist, before slowly turning his gaze to the door…and to the corpses nailed to the columns. Apparently Andrew Ryan was extremely…gory, in his actions.

"Mr. DeWitt," a voice boomed through the room. "I was expecting you sooner —do come in."

As Ryan said that, the door unlocked and twirled open, revealing a wide hall filled with tables and desks, all upon which once probably worked the employees. Moving past them, through the heart of the city itself, Booker came to a halt in front of a glass wall, where behind it a distinctive looking gentleman stood playing golf.

"My, should I practice I wonder?" Andrew Ryan mused, his golf-club hoisted now on his shoulder. "I suppose I shouldn't."

"Where's the tear?"

"In my office, of course." Ryan talked from behind the glass panel, pointing at a translucent tear. "The question is…do you really wish to open it?"

Booker snarled as he brought his pistol up, firing a shot against the glass. The bullet smacked the surface and ricocheted, hitting the man's stomach as the shield absorbed the impact.

"Tsk. Barbarian." Andrew rolled his eyes. "The entirety of Rapture is yours to explore…think about it: all those secrets, all those powerful weapons…all yours, if only you dare move your hands to grasp it!"

"And you'd let me take them?" he retorted not believing for even a second the man. He knew Ryan's doctrine: he'd never give a 'parasite' everything.

"Look around, Rapture is dying Mr. DeWitt. It is still my choice how it will end however…something you never had wasn't it?" the smile was feral as the trimmed moustache man chuckled. "I will terminate Rapture and myself on my own accord, by my own will, because of my own choices…and can you claim the same? No. Forced to fight, forced to live, forced to die… No better than one of those black slaves Columbia holds prisoner up in the sky, isn't it? No better than a bot, a big Daddy filled with an unbreakable bond to a little sister, a Splicer with his addiction to Adam. You are no better than a slave, a slave of your own making and will."

"I already had this talk once, was this all Robert wanted me to hear?"

"No, pathetic excuse of a human being," Andrew Ryan laughed as the back of his right hand was pressed against the glass panel. "_This_ is what he wanted you to see."

_A.D._

Etched on the hand. Carved with a knife. To remember, to never forget…there. The mark of the False Shepard.

"Adam, wonderful thing…age just leaves your skin unblemished doesn't it, my foolish other self? But do you know what my mark means? It doesn't mean Anna DeWitt, daughter sold to wipe away the debts made by gambling. It means something else, to me at least…it means to _Assassinate Destiny_. Fate? Fate is but a wrapped up gift filled with parasites. 'It was fated' 'it was destined' 'it was time' 'There was nothing you could do!' _Choices define us!_ We always have a choice! We would not be human otherwise!" Andrew gasped for air before screaming at the top of his lungs.

"A man has choices, DeWitt! I chose the impossible! I built a city where the artists would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the _great_ would not be constrained by the small. I chose to build Rapture. But my city was betrayed by the weak. So I ask you my friend, if you live with pride, would you kill the _innocent_? Would you sacrifice _your_ humanity? We all make choices, but in the end, our choices make us"

Andrew slammed his right hand against the glass panel as he roared.

"_EVEN A SLAVE CAN CHOOSE TO DIE DEWITT!_ A Man chooses to rise! A Man chooses to break the shackles! A Man does not take the coward's way out! A man fights! A man roars against God, the Government, the weak and the parasite! A man claws and spits all the way towards hell, and if has to die then he kicks and tries to drag with him all those around him!"

There was a blaring sound of a siren, as the ground began to shake and tremble.

"There is no future here for you, or me, or Jack or Delta or Comstock…there is nothing in this world but decadence and purulence, rot and devastation…which is why, Booker, all must end. Do you understand my words, Booker? All. Must. End. Do not stop the avalanche, for it is impossible! Stop the pebble, DeWitt. Stop the pebble and you will _see_. _Do not question! For to question is to surrender, DeWitt_!"

Then the Securis door opened, and Andrew Ryan spoke softly.

"Now come in, would you kindly?"

And Booker DeWitt entered the room that smelled thickly of cigar smoke and brandy, filled with various books and luxurious furniture. He saw the ripple of a tear in the corner, but that wasn't what caught his attention. It was a Vigor, shining in the room on the nearby desk.

Return to Sender.

"I would not drink that, were I you," Andrew commented wistfully. "But I am you, and you would drink it, were you me."

Booker breathed slowly, giving a slow look at his other self before turning to the bottle. There was an order to things. He hadn't killed Daisy Fitzroy to begin with, so maybe…

"She was never yours to kill," Andrew chuckled. "Whom do you think did Anna shoot at, in Shanktown?"

"But Daisy wasn't…"

"She was… that woman did follow you, and your darling Anna did what she was best at: she fought for you, with you, and all the way to the end. You should ask yourself a question, Mr. DeWitt…her proximity to you did or did not worsen your condition? And then, once you come to that type of question…why would she be held in a tower, if she held no power at all to bring fear to Comstock? Maybe because her power didn't work for tears…but for something else."

"I—"

"Think DeWitt, think and understand. You do not need to drink to recall the Vigor, yet you do it anyway because you can't see. If you can't understand, if you can't see…then I pity you, for you truly are a blind slave in a world of tyrants."

Andrew chuckled then, "But let me not hold you…"

Ryan's own gold club swung down to his side, as a massive tear opened. "What is yours is mine after all…and what is mine is yours. We will meet again, eventually. When that time comes, I hope you will understand that there is no god, but only man… _No god, Dewitt, only man_!"

And then Andrew Ryan slipped through the tear of his own creation, disappearing beyond Booker's grasp.

The Sky-Hook did land in mid-air, grasping at nothing as another rumble made the room tremble.

Booker ran towards the tear, gritting his teeth in frustration as he tried to open it. The Return to Sender glinted dangerously on the desk, but if he could avoid it… if he could ignore its allure…

But the Tear would not open.

Not enough.

Not enough what? Power? Strength of will? Wish fulfilling? Not enough desire to see his real daughter? Not enough understanding?

_Quantum dissonance carries on._

Not enough dissonance. Dissonance of what? The Vigor? But…

He held the Return to Sender in his hand as if it were a precious treasure, a precious, poisonous and highly deadly treasure. Would this be his last?

Would he die in the self-destructing city of Rapture, or would he not?

Questions on who could have given Ryan the Vigor, what could have brought forth such a thing and the like never passed through Booker's brain —as while he did understand some things, others eluded him completely. So Booker did what he had done time and time again: he did what he _had_ to do. He uncorked the Vigor, his eyes close as he brought the substance to his lips.

And then he drank.

He shuddered as he felt his arms and hands start to tense, ready to literally have their skin torn from their bones…and then he pushed against the Tear, opening it up as he fell forward, straight through it…

And right in the corner of a street. He barely managed not to slip on the pavement, as his back dropped against the nearby wall. He was breathing in and out slowly, when his eyes finally focused enough to let him see a strange iron construction reach for the sky.

It was the Tour Eiffel.

He was in France.

He was in Paris.

And Anna was somewhere in here, somewhere close…if only he could find her then…then everything would be fine, and there wouldn't be a problem because…

His head felt as heavy as if somebody was actually pressing an anvil against it, his eyes hurt as if they were melting while all of his joints cracked from the barest of his movements. He just…

He felt like hell had decided to pay him a personal visit overnight.

"Monsieur," a female voice spoke. "Are vous all right?"

He blinked, before blearily bringing his gaze upwards to meet crystal sky blue eyes.

Those same eyes widened nearly comically at his sight, before they began to tear up. The girl's delicate hold on a baguette was soon forgotten, as Elizabeth…no, Anna DeWitt fell on her knees near Booker DeWitt, her father, and hugged the day lights out of him.

Certain things, at least…

Certain things never changed.

_But it wasn't over yet, was it?_

_It's never over._

_Time will finally catch up to me._

_Time for me to drown to live._

_Time._

_Time was the only constant._

_He didn't have time._

_Not the where, but the when._

_Travelling through the where was easy._

_The When was impossible…_

_Was it?_

He screeched in a guttural verse as his claws rasped against the sides of a building. Daisy Fitzroy's days were accounted for. He had been fast. He hoped it had been enough.

Comstock called and he would obey. The scream tore through the room the Prophet used, in which he was holding Anna DeWitt hostage, in which he was talking to her, telling her a truth the girl had not been ready for. He hoped his gamble would pay off in the end…

After all, what use was playing poker, if all your cards were revealed so soon?

Comstock's next orders were barked to the leader of the Crows, an old time friend, and a horrible poker face. The man curtly nodded, and then left.

And in that moment, the leader of the Crows began to take out his instruments of torture.

He had seen enough, as he heard the chimes that called for him elsewhere.

Anna would face her own tortures, just like he would suffer his own.

And all because he was tired of being everywhere.

One for all and all for one…he just hoped DeWitt would get the right idea, for if he didn't…

Then he would just worsen everything for everyone else.

**Author's notes**

***Badum tss tss***

**Well, of course the story is over with Booker happily in Paris with his daughter, while the other Anna gets horribly tortured to death.**

**Yeah.**

**Right.**

**Worry not and wait for the next chapter **_**sometimes**_** tomorrow or after tomorrow. (Oh gawd, the Pun with 'Sometimes'!)**

**There are direct quotes of Ryan-talk in Andrew Ryan's words.**

**As well as a clearly pointed out 'why does Songbird seem such a bastard'.**

**And we see the master of the Crows again!**

**(He's clearly an unimportant character, really…too thick for his own good, gave DeWitt the shiny sword and all for nothing!)**

**For the cursive, there are two sentences taken from the Audio Easter eggs.**

**Eleanor will come back, but she's further down the road. (It seems I keep on postponing the meeting…but she'll come when the time is right)**

**Be careful, Robert never directly implied Anna was to be collected.**

**At the moment I'm counting far more Bookers.**

**Booker, Alternate-Booker, Booker-Ryan, Booker-Delta, Booker-Jack and…well, Comstock I suppose?**

**That would make six. For only two measly Annas…**

**I already saw the end, and it is glorious and with a music that is a mixture of 'the Fleet Arrives' and 'Rise of the Revolution'.**

**PS:**

**This story is now the second most followed story of the Bioshock fanfiction category. Let's try and get it further up gents! We're all links of the chain of industry! No parasites among us!**


	16. The Clash of Choices

Sometimes

Chapter Sixteen

The small apartment Anna had in Paris was on the second floor of a picturesque brick house. There were flowers —red roses— at the windowsill, and while it wasn't as big as the wide halls of Rapture or the gorgeous villas of Columbia, it was still homely enough to put Booker at ease. He saw a bookcase filled with books one thicker than the other in the small dining room-studio-hall. There were just two other doors, one probably leading to the bedroom and the other to the bathroom.

There was a smell of ground coffee and bread mixed with vanilla in the air, while the sound of the cupboard opening under Anna's fretful hands snapped his attention back on his daughter who was cheerfully trying to explain what she had been doing.

"You know, I sort of found work," the girl bubbled. "I was going to and from the library every day, and Monsieur François —that's the name of the librarian by the way— saw it and asked if I wanted to work there. I don't really need to work: I just open a tear and get the money from someplace or another…I know it's stealing, but hey, I don't think people mind if I get Silver Eagles now, do they?"

She placed the coffee machine on the fire, before spinning around in her usual white and blue dress with the long cerulean skirt. "So Booker, where have you been? I've been looking for you everywhere! I lost you past the lighthouse's door, and…"

Booker's throat clenched.

"The door?"

"Yeah," Anna's smile faltered. "You know, when I said we didn't have to do it, because I admit I was a bit scared too so…" her gaze went downwards awkwardly. "I mean, what if we found out something horrible?"

She didn't know.

That thought grounded Booker to a halt. _She didn't know_.

Out of all the people he had expected to know, the only one who didn't know he was Comstock was there, right in front of him. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible.

Yet it was.

Hadn't she received some sort of ultra-powerful insight in the events?

_With what time?_

Time was the only constant. Anna might have received all her powers back, but that didn't mean she had gone through everything to find out the truth. They had travelled through universes —that much was true— but they had never truly gone through time.

Always to a universe where things had yet to happen.

"Anna…"

"Oh God," the girl blushed slightly bringing her hands to her face. "I had forgotten about _that_, Book— should I call you dad now?"

"Ehm, what you like the most?" he hazarded, before frowning. "Wait, why were you looking for me then?"

"Duh! I lost you!" she snapped back, crossing her arms over her chest. "I was worried. You can barely survive without me! I wonder how you managed all this time alone. Just look at you! Did you fight a horde of Handy-men or what?"

He coughed.

"Songbird."

"Uh? Songbird?" she frowned. "Didn't I kill him in Rapture?"

"Well, yes," he whispered. How could he put it? "You did kill…a Songbird."

"A?"

Her eyebrows rose for a moment, before her eyes slowly glazed over. "Oh…right…I—"

"You couldn't know."

She bit her lower lip. "Well, I suppose you had your excuses. That's over however now! We're in Paris Booker! I mean— Dad! We can go around and eat ice-cream! They make these delicious 'wet breads' or whatever, which are—"

"Anna," his voice was hoarse as it came out. "I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't?" she croaked out. "Of course you can! It's over! Comstock's dead and gone and—"

"No," he shook his head. "Anna, please…think."

"What is there to think!? Comstock's dead! Columbia is no more! He did not take me from you! You didn't sell me, there's nothing that—"

And there she froze.

"Booker, why am I still here?"

"Because I _am_ Comstock," he whispered. "And as long as a Booker DeWitt will live, so too will a Comstock."

"No, no, that's not true!" she shook her head. "You're not Comstock! The man was…he was a monster and you're…"

"Anna," he took a step forward. "I had a choice once, of taking a baptism or not. I refused and became Booker DeWitt. I accepted…and I became Zachary Comstock."

"You're lying, please Booker…this is a lie, right?" her voice was pleading. "You can't be Comstock. You're not…you can't…I'd have to…"

"It wouldn't work," he shook his head. "You tried, mind you —one of your other selves tried."

Anna's eyes dropped on the ground, before suddenly widening as her mouth opened in shock.

"I…I…" her voice hiccupped as her hands wringed from the weight of the revelation. "I…What did I do to you, Booker?"

Booker's face showed a slight wry smile, before he replied in a barely hearable tone.

"You drowned me."

Anna fell on her knees, her head banging against counter of the kitchen as she stared with her eyes empty at him. "I drowned you," she mumbled. "I drowned my _father_. I…I drowned you, Booker. I mean…I killed you, tried to…I…"

"You did what you thought was right," he whispered back, taking a step forward and getting down on one knee, in front of the girl. "I don't fault you for that."

His right hand gently clasped on her shoulder. He smiled bitterly. "Really, it's not your fault."

"I drowned my father. I suppose I must have hated celebrating father's day then." Anna's murmur grew quiet, as the girl kept a shocked face while shaking her head slowly. The coffee machine began to splutter, as the dark brown liquid emerged from the filter.

The scent of coffee filled the air, as the silence was broken by Anna's whisper.

"Why can't we stay here, Booker? It's peaceful…there's no Columbia here."

"Anna," his breath hitched. "We need to go back, because it's not over: we need to go back, because there is another you in Comstock's clutches right now, because we can't leave Comstock alive, because we can't leave this cycle unbroken...ever."

Anna made a wry smile, slowly closing her eyes. "You're a good man, Booker…don't change that."

Then her eyes widened a moment later.

"Another _me_!?" she exclaimed. "What do you mean an—"

Then she stilled, sucking in air sharply before her eyes began to tear up.

"You're…I'm…we're…or not?"

"_I don't know_." And those three words summed up everything Booker believed in the situation. "But I can't let any of you suffer, not if I can avoid it."

Anna nodded, slowly standing up as Booker offered his hand to lift her. "We're partners in this, right?" Booker asked, eerily reminiscing of that moment when it had been Anna to make him the offer as she lifted him up.

"We are, Booker." Anna's lips twitched into a light smirk. "I'll save your ass again I suppose."

"Language." He chided.

"Oh? Now you're the one acting all puritan?" she mocked him, her voice filled with mirth.

"Coffee's ready, I suppose."

Anna turned and nodded. Humming nicely, she grabbed two delicate cups to fill, before pouring the hot liquid within them. A few seconds later and she raised one as if preparing to make a cheer.

"Well, to the Anna and Booker partnership then?"

"To Comstock's demise," he added as the two cups made a sound clink.

As they finished drinking, Anna hurried in her bedroom. "I'm getting my stuff ready!" she exclaimed.

Booker just rolled his eyes. His gaze settled on the window and the outside. He felt a stab of guilt at the thought of taking all of this…all of this _peace_ away from Anna. There were no Handy-Men roaming the streets, no rioters…it was just Paris. It was just France. There was the Tour Eiffel standing as a towering giant perch for the screaming Songbird who was—

Wait.

What?

The screech of the Songbird soon followed the blares of Columbia's War Zeppelins as they descended their fiery destruction of rockets and power over the city. Anna came out of her room screaming. "Booker! What's going on!?"

"It's… It's Comstock!" he murmured.

Why was this happening?

_To get him to move._

But…

_To make sure Anna would follow._

All right, someone here was playing with his mind.

"We have to go! Open a tear!" he exclaimed as the girl nodded grimly.

"Give me some time!"

Anna's hands went through the air, the rippling waves of the Tear already forming…when Songbird's giant eyes settled on their apartment's location. Maybe the bird could detect the Tear's opening? That would explain how he was able to find them…

And _this_ bird…well, this bird didn't appear at all wounded.

"We don't have time!" he screamed, grabbing Anna by the waist as he pushed her with him out of the kitchen. Songbird's swipe tore apart the very walls, throwing the water pipes and the gas ones to eject their contents with strength just as the upper floor began to creak and break. The creature screeched, slamming his right claw inside to try and grasp the two of them.

Booker pushed Anna away from him —the girl stumbled and rolled on the floor, as the man was instead captured. A moment later and Songbird flew backwards; it left behind Anna...the bird had come for _him_, not for Anna.

"Booker!" Anna's scream reached him, as he tried to fight against the mounting pressure in the monster's palm.

"Let. Me. Go!" Booker's own yell was met with the Songbird's screech as his eyes turned green with Columbia's proximity. The powerful wings of the creature stopped their flaps as the beast landed on the outskirts of Comstock's house. The monster of leather and steel walked to the twin massive doors of the house, dropping Booker harshly on the doorstep.

Next to him, a tear was already starting to form as the figure of a frantic Anna came into view.

"Booker!" the girl exclaimed as she jumped through just in time, leaving behind the crumbling building.

Songbird screeched again, his claws slamming on the ground near the doorstep as a set of tunes sung in the air, sending him to fly away.

The twin doors chose that moment to open.

A healthy-looking Comstock stood there, smiling serenely as he held a _grenade launcher_ within his hands. "Do not force me to use this."

Booker swallowed anxiously, his gaze going to Anna. He had no doubt that while the girl's ability to use Tears had most certainly increased, she couldn't stop a Grenade from detonating in mid-air. Even if he did 'return it to sender' it would still explode near them —he needed Comstock to move back, at least a little bit.

"Come in, I just want to talk." Comstock's words rang calm, "I did not go to great lengths to obtain nothing DeWitt."

"So spoke the devil," Booker muttered as he placed a hand on Anna's shoulder. "She leaves."

"Why would she? You need to go back, do you not?" Zachary inquired. "Mr. DeWitt, you are misunderstanding the situation dearly."

"How does attacking Paris result in a misunderstanding?" he snorted back.

"You tore down the Tour Eiffel!" Anna yelled in anguish. "It was—"

"It was an eye-sore," Zachary remarked. "Like the tower of Babel, none should try and reach God."

"The Tour wasn't built for that!" Anna's shriek was met with a shrug from the old man, who merely beckoned them inside with the front of his grenade launcher.

"Does it matter in the end?" Zachary said. "What matters is what one ends up having: a tower to reach the heavens. A lighthouse to bring forth light to the lost. In the midst of an ocean of despair, a light that can shine true and to the point, that can save the lost…that can give hope to the wary."

"Yeah, all right Zachary. I've got enough Vigors to tear you apart here…let us go."

"You sure you don't want to come in, Booker?" It wasn't Zachary who spoke next. Anna, a long haired and white long-dressed Anna walked towards him, having come in from one of the doors within the mansion.

Anna's —his Elizabeth at least— eyes widened in shock. Just as the properly looking girl stopped with a warm smile. "We have much to discuss…and little time."

In that instant, Booker's throat clenched as he felt his heart constrict. He gasped as he heard a thrumming noise within his very head, his hands moving to hold the sides as he let out a scream.

_Only blood can redeem blood._

_The Lord is calling me home. I feel His love in every tumor, because they are the train which takes me to his station._

_One man goes into the waters of baptism; a different man comes out, born again. But who is that man who lies submerged? Perhaps that swimmer is both sinner and saint, until he is revealed unto the eyes of man._

Blood poured out of his eyes and nose, as he held his hand over his face. "BOOKER!" Anna's scream was deafening as he felt the entire world around him spin and twirl.

"Little time indeed," the Alternate-Anna spoke quietly. "Maybe I shouldn't have come?"

"Nonsense dear, you did the right thing: I too would be as unmoving as a rock otherwise —I know my stubbornness pretty well."

"What is going on!? Stop this!" Anna screamed again in rage, her gaze settled on the Alternate-Anna's wry smile.

"I'm not doing anything, Anna…you are —well, technically _we_ are." The girl smiled, before slowly turning back and walking away.

Booker's sight unfocused, his last sight being that of Zachary bringing them inside, of Anna's yell of body harm on him…

And then he woke up in Shanktown.

He groaned as the dingy mattress he was on creaked…

His sight went back to Comstock's face, which seemed to be holding him by the shoulders.

"Do. Not. Go!" he screamed at him in anger. The white beard of the prophet seemed unnaturally shiny so up close. "Not. Yet!"

And then Comstock was gone. Disappeared into thin strands of nothing as he blinked and stared at the room he was in. Anna's shocked face was in the corner of the room, her wide blue eyes fixed in the spot the Prophet had occupied a moment before.

_It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination._

_The challenge is to all mankind. _There was a man speaking, a man that kind-of seemed like one of the guys…wasn't it Woodrow Wilson? Had he been elected President, since he spoke to the congress? A war against all nations?

Trenches dug in mud filled the air, strange green colored vapors choked men who screamed in pain as their entire bodies burned. Wire filled with pointy knots tore apart the legs, as the rattling machineguns fired upon the charging hordes. Blood and screams of the wounded were everywhere. Strange looking chariots, with cannons mounted upon them, dashed through the trenches crushing the enemy and firing upon the positions.

It was a war.

A horrible and horrendous war which made his stomach tight and twisted…

And it wasn't the last one.

_I am from now on just First Soldier of the German Reich. I have once more put on that coat that was the most sacred and dear to me. I will not take it off again until victory is secured or I will not survive the outcome._ A man with a trim moustache spoke to an assembled coalition of people, all wielding strange insignias of black and red. Booker's eyes moved to the sight of war, of trenches and of flying machines of iron and steel unlike the zeppelins he had knowledge of drop their loads upon cities.

The first explosions shocked him…the rest, it disgusted him.

War ravaged the land, as innocents and guilty alike were taken in by the crossfire, as buildings were torn asunder and churches burned. People were moved like cattle onto trains, as screams of the family divided reached his mind.

_Do you still wonder why the sins of men must not be washed in the flames of rightful heaven?_

_Who are you?_

_Booker DeWitt…the right question is not who I am…but when I am. Live. Lived. Will Live. Die. Died. Will Die. Choose. Chose. Will Choose._

Anna's hands gripped his shoulders tightly, as the girl screamed into his face with tears running down her eyes. There was also the other Anna, watching with her hands clasped together and a frightened expression on her face. What was the problem now?

"Booker! Please! Fight him off!"

_Do you understand me now, Booker DeWitt? Why I chose to burn the world first? Because if I hadn't, then they would have burned themselves!_

_That's…you…_

_Think Booker! Had you the chance to make things right, wouldn't you take it? Had you the chance to fight for a higher cause, would you not grasp it? To redeem your sins, would you become the martyr of a new era? I chose my path years ago, Booker DeWitt. I chose to save humanity from itself! Let them all have a common enemy! Let them all believe me the devil! For in the end, I will have saved them all…_

_You could have told them._

_They wouldn't listen!_

_You should have screamed._

_They didn't want to!_

_You didn't try…You didn't try._

_Enough, DeWitt! This is my world! This is my choice! Accept it! Understand it! Acknowledge it!_

"Father! Conquer the heretic!" Alternate-Anna yelled then. Anna spun around and glared at her other self, before throwing herself against the girl and starting to pull at her hair.

"My hair!"

"Take that you—"

_Humanity doesn't need a Prophet!_

_It needs a savior DeWitt. It always did since the time of our Lord's child sacrifice. It always will…great men have risen to take the challenge of humankind, how many Prophets have risen in time? How many claiming they knew the Divine's will when they did not? I saw the future, DeWitt…does that not entitle me to try and change it? AM I WRONG IN WISHING FOR LESS DEATH!? _

_Why didn't you share then? You didn't want to. You just wanted to sit upon your throne! You just wanted to be remembered as a hero, and not a slaughterer of innocents. You never forgave yourself for Wounded Knee! I never have too, but I didn't try and hide it behind blind fanaticism! I am a horrible man, a horrid father and a monster! I slaughtered hundreds or even thousands, but I acknowledge that! I cannot condone this. I will not understand this._

_Then so be it, DeWitt. It has always been your choice…live and be doomed with it._

And then Booker DeWitt coughed and fell on the ground, from the bed he had been resting on, as he breathed in slowly. He could hear the scuffle of the two girls in the room as they both seemed to be screaming obscenities to one another.

Of course, said obscenities seemed more like the things two five years-old would say rather than outright insults.

"You poop!" Alternate-Anna exclaimed.

"Is that the best you can do, you skank!?" he actually was surprised. Anna knew the word 'skank'?

"You! You…You Improper Lady!"

Booker stood slowly up, his steps taking him closer to the two girls on the ground. Alternate-Anna had half of her skirt torn —revealing quite a bit of leg he, as her father, didn't want to see _ever_—while his own Anna was now without her left sleeve and half of her corset's strings had been snapped.

"Are you two done?" he muttered, pulling the two of them apart. "What happened?"

"Booker!" Anna exclaimed happily, lounging to hug him and starting to cry. "You're all right!"

"No," the Alternate Anna whispered while shaking her head. "No…" her voice croaked out. "He lost…he said he wouldn't…"

"What was all that about?" Booker asked angrily, his gaze settled on the lithe and shaking form of the Alternate-Anna.

"He said it would be a test of wills that he would win —that he would change the world…He…He can't be dead! Father please! Please answer me!" she screamed as she launched herself against Booker, her fists hitting his chest repeatedly as the girl sobbed. "Don't leave me alone, please."

"_Hush little lamb,_" he whispered soothingly, gently caressing the girl's hair. "_The end is near anyway, so fear not the Shepard, and fear not the Dark, for in the end faith is a Spark. I'm sorry, Elizabeth. I'm really sorry."_

Elizabeth's cries and trembling shoulders stopped slowly, as the girl wiped away her tears. The next moment she pushed away, turning to move to the desk within the room. Upon it was the flute, the one that was meant to work in controlling Songbird. Next to the flute was a locket, a beautiful golden thing with the symbol of a Big Daddy's helmet on it.

"Here," she croaked out, her throat sore. "Take this and go."

She handed him the flute, and to Anna she gave the locket. "You don't know how lucky you are," Elizabeth whispered to Anna, her eyes still longing on Booker's form. "Don't let him die, or my father will have died twice."

"I…I see," Anna swallowed thickly as she clasped the locket on her neck. Booker wondered what could be inside, but it didn't even seem to have any sort of opening…so it wasn't as if he could try.

"I have to go now," Elizabeth murmured. "The Lamb needs to take the place of the Prophet. The world will know of—"

"Wait!" Booker brought up his hand just as Elizabeth was about to leave. "You don't have to do this! Your father had planned for this. He didn't want you to give your life up for his dreams! Sue for peace, tell them your father was a tyrant, and that he was killed. Tell them you took his place and are willing to work with the world to change things. Tell them of his visions; tell them of the Lutece's work…you can change the future, if you wish for it."

Elizabeth stilled in the doorway for a second more, before slowly forming a smile.

"Father has always been a good man," she shook her head slowly. "Always worrying for others…never for him..."

And then she was gone.

And as he turned to where Anna was standing, her eyes soft and looking at him…

He couldn't help but wonder what, precisely, had happened between him and Comstock.

Anna opened the tear that would normally guide them to Columbia, and he brought his arms forward to help her. In a second, the sight changed to Comstock's mansion, to the same room…

But in a universe where Alternate-Anna's form was strapped to a chair with a Zealot of the Lady starting his instruments of torture.

With a scream, Booker passed through the Tear Sky-Hook in hand…

Only for another Sky-Hook to meet his own.

**Author's notes**

**Badum-Tss-Tss!**

**Clifffffff hanger!**

**That said, on the Alternate-Comstock and Booker thing: you have electricity and a battery. You can't overflow or *bad stuff happens* so if electricity keeps piling up…just widen the battery!**

**Did you see the 'Choices' in the chapter? Like Booker accepting/refusing Comstock's viewpoint, or him stopping/letting Elizabeth go without another word?**

**That said, Booker to the Rescue of the other Anna! *OR so we hope***

**PS: anyone handy enough with drawing to try and make a cover?**


	17. The Wrench in the Mechanism

Sometimes

Chapter Seventeen

Sky-Hook met Sky-Hook, as the blades intertwined while the sparks flew. The leader of the Crows punched Booker with his right hand, hitting the ex-Pinkerton agent in the jaw and sending him to tumble on the ground. The next moment the man had become a Murder of Crows, flying as a flock right behind Anna and lifting his own sword to the girl's neck.

"Don't move or she gets it, False Shepard!" the voice was raspy and filled with barely concealed anger, as it held the sword poised to strike.

Chimes rang in the air, as an alarm blared in the room. The doors swung open as guardsmen poured in —Crows following in close.

"I knew you'd come through here, False Shepard," the leader of the Crows cackled. "Once in the flock, always among the ravens."

"What the hell are you talking about?" he hissed back as his eyes moved wide to the right and the left…the windows slowly displayed metallic grates rising from their hidden holes blocking the way out. "This was a trap."

"Of course it was!" the leader of the Crows laughed as he pulled Anna away. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth! Kill the False Shepard men! Kill. The. Shepard!"

Anna's leg stomped hard on the Crow's foot, making him scream in pain as the girl jumped forward, reaching for her father. In that moment, Booker unleashed the flock of Crows. The Zealot was unfazed as it poured itself forward, regaining his composure within mere seconds. The guards screamed but Booker had other troubles.

Anna rolled to the side, avoiding the flock of the Zealot who instead ended up slamming against Booker and rolling on the ground, both flinging fists at one another. Booker's knee met with the stomach of the Crow, just as the leader himself managed a right hook on the face of the ex-Pinkerton.

Anna's hands quickly worked through the ties on the Alternate's Anna, while the crows cawed and kept at bay the guards. The Crows among them were unhindered however, and as two of them marched to stop and grab the girl, pushing her away and one of the two actually punching her in the stomach. Anna groaned in pain as she crumpled on the ground.

A fist of the Zealot collided with Booker's jaw, as another one worked his nose. "This! You will not defeat the Prophet! You cannot for his will is all! Just stay _down_ and _die_!"

He roared as he moved his head abruptly to the side, before sinking his teeth on the hand of the Zealot, who screamed as he fell backwards. His glove was torn apart in that instant, and as the man moved staggering back, Booker spat out the blood on his tongue. A heavy burn mark stood clearly etched on the Zealot of the Lady's hand.

In that moment, Booker's blood froze as the man's hand went to cover it. "So, False Shepard! It is time now! You must die!"

"Why are you doing this?" he whispered in shock. "You're Booker DeWitt!" he exclaimed, pointing his hand at him. "You're me! She's…she's Anna for God's sake! You'd torture your own daughter!?"

"What?" the Zealot stilled. He stilled as he took a deep shuddering breath. "Shut up. False Shepard, shut up. Shut up. _Shut up_!" the man charged again, the Crow form forcing a terrible flock upon Booker who rolled on the ground, avoiding it as his shield recharged.

Booker's Bucking Bronco came into effect a second later, aimed at the Crows who were outright holding Anna still, one of the two having punched the girl in the face —where a dark eye was now red and puffy. The Crows screamed as they began to float in the air, while Anna's hand flailed wildly as she grasped the closest weapon…a butcher's saw.

The next moment, without even looking, the neck of one of the crows began to gush out blood in a spray. A covered in blood Anna didn't stop there however, screaming as she was she pierced the abdomen of the other Crow, before watching as they both were slammed in the ground by the Vigor's effect.

In that time, the Zealot of the Lady who was apparently another Booker roared as he _charged_ the Sky-Hook burst through his shield, as the blades settled themselves between his ribs. He choked on his own blood, as the Zealot screamed.

"_DIE_!"

The motor began to spin, and he felt the pain flare through his chest as the blades tried to cut through his very bones. In that moment, the other Anna jumped on the back of the Zealot.

"LET MY FATHER GO!" she screeched, forcing the man to remove the hand and use them both to pull the girl away. Booker coughed and moved to grab the embedded Sky-Hook, removing it with a sickening squelching sound as his hands turned crimson.

He fell on one knee, panting hard as his gaze turned woozy.

"Booker!" Anna yelled.

"Father!" another Anna screamed as she fell on the ground.

_Stand tall for the people of America._

He shuddered as he breathed once, before jumping off the ground and into the air, his fist ready to slam on the back of the Alternate Booker in question. The bones broke in his right hand as the Zealot's coffin came up as if possessing his own will, shielding the man.

He didn't stop as his left hand shoved the Sky-Hook straight through the chains holding the coffin, breaking them and sending it to tumble on the ground.

"False Shepard!" the Zealot's right hand hit him in the chest once more, making him cry out in pain as the wound of the Sky-Hook was still there. "Today is the day you die!"

"Cough…this gets old fast," he muttered back. He staggered as a gunshot echoed in the room. The bullet flew in the air and slammed straight against Booker's shoulder, the strength of the shot sending him backwards.

"You cannot win, False Shepard." The Zealot retorted, "God will forbid it!"

Alternate-Anna's crawling brought her close to where the second Sky-Hook had fallen, bloodied and forgotten. In the moment it took the Zealot to walk forward, she slammed its blades on the man's back, ripping apart the fabric and sending the Crow screaming on the floor.

"D—"

And then the guards shot.

She closed her eyes, expecting the pain of the bullet's stings on her, so she was clearly surprised when none came. She hesitantly opened her eyes, only to see a flickering black and white form that resembled…Comstock with wings and cogs?

"_For Family_!" the motorized patriot bellowed, as it soaked the incoming bullets and sent back his own version with his gun. Standing behind the Tear-brought machine Booker's gaze was set on his hand: he had been the one to bring the thing through.

Not Anna.

Him.

He was soon reached by Anna, who helped him up as the Alternate one looked perplexed and shocked.

"Dad?" she whispered.

"Anna," he said with a wince, the pain of his wound terrible. "He…" Booker pointed to the Zealot… "Remove his cowl, please."

Alternate Anna's eyes widened, but she slowly stumbled down on her knees next to the fallen man and did as such.

The moment she removed it, she gasped. There were light burns on his entire face, half of his face singed as if he had imitated Cornelius and not the opposite.

All along, they had been the same person.

_He never came back for her…because he never left to begin with._

_If Booker DeWitt had fought at Wounded Knee, taking the brunt of the damage in place of Slate…if he had been inspired to follow the Prophet in Columbia, and had sold his daughter to a Comstock from another reality, would he have followed in the end?_

_He would have found the Lutece, wouldn't he?_

_They would have brought him there, wouldn't they?_

_But the shock of travelling would take away from his mind everything he knew of Anna wouldn't it?_

_Like it had been with him._

_Donning a mask, to hide his horrible face…_

_Taking on the fanaticism, all to find his daughter…_

_That could have been a possibility._

_Seeing him, in the bar, it might have awakened something. Maybe that had been the beginning?_

He kneeled, his hand moving to the man's neck to check for a pulse.

There was none.

The man had died.

Booker DeWitt had died.

_The spine was severed. He couldn't breathe…so he died. He had died gasping for air._

His daughter had killed him.

Somehow, the shudder he felt at such a thing happening didn't make things any better.

"For Family!" the motorized patriot exclaimed once more, before dropping on the ground in shambles and disappearing once the Tear's powers ran their course. Around them, the room had been riddled with bullets and dead bodies. A few of the guards had tried to run in the end, only for the bullets to hit them in the back. It had been a slaughter.

"Dad?" Alternate-Anna whispered, her gaze moving to Booker who was awkwardly held up by his Anna. "What is going on?"

"I'm Annabeth," Anna said quickly. "I'm your twin —your older twin."

Really? Booker mentally winced: he doubted the other girl would believe such a lie, but at the moment he had to stand…

His hand went to his pocket where, among the shards of the broken bottles, one still clinked. He wobbled towards the window, taking out the syringe for the morphine dose, when Anna's hand shot to stop him. Of course she would follow and of course her eyes had to have gotten sharper with time.

"Booker, what in the name of God do you think you're doing!?"

"Morphine," he retorted. "Try breathing with a half-torn chest," he sighed in relief the moment the needle broke the skin and the dose worked its miracles. "And now we can go. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner—"

"I have a sister?" Alternate-Anna asked then, her eyes settling on Booker with a surprised gaze. He nodded half-heartedly as he carefully made his way for the door. The hallway was eerily silent, as the far off sound of guns echoed through the entire mansion. The various paintings depicted the Prophet in heroic and inspirational poses, with the Founding Fathers hailing him through many oils and even quite a few mosaics of the floor.

There was a stairway leading upstairs at the end of the corridor, the other side crumbled as if something had exploded. He had carefully taken a step on the stair, when he finally turned around and blinked at the sight of both his 'daughters'.

Anna-Beth was wearing one of the Crows' large black robes —probably to cover the fact she had left behind her entire drenched-in-blood attire. She was swinging the butcher's knife and the Sky-Hook appreciatively…and the slight scowl on her face told him she wasn't actually happy about it. Alternate Anna was instead holding with her arm the Sky-Hook she had used to off the Zealot of the Lady. It still dripped blood…and somehow that didn't reassure Booker at all...

Why couldn't he have more normal daughters?

"Daisy! Daisy!" the screams weren't coming from the lower levels, but from the upper ones. The gunshots and the screams of the dying soon formed a picture over Booker's mind as he took the steps two at a time. Annabeth and Anna followed him hurriedly.

Booker's run stopped short of the door to the rooftop of the mansion, as he carefully laid his right hand to open it; Anna's own went to stop him in that instant.

"Can't we just leave?" she whispered, her gaze looking at him as if…as if there was some sort of important revelation to be seen just beyond the door. Why would there be anything on the other side of troubling?

"There's not another way out," Annabeth remarked. "It's sink or swim…as always, Booker."

"You can wait here if you'd rather…" he gently spoke to Anna, who simply bit her lip before shaking her head. Booker took a final deep breath, and then opened the door. The sea of red in front of him wasn't made only of the blood of the dead or the dying, but also of the living Vox who were screaming and yelling as they kicked the corpses of the Comstock's guards.

Their hoverboats floated nearby, probably having carried them all the way to the rooftop. Daisy Fitzroy was there, standing atop one of the hoverboats as she screamed her words of inspiration and rage. The man next to her was Cornelius, and somehow the feeling of dread that had been steadily rising within Booker grew even more.

He was in a Crow's clothes.

Anna was too.

The moment the Vox screamed as they pointed at them, Cornelius' eyes settled on him with the very same predatory grin he had known the man was famous for.

"We have taken the roof! We have fought and bled! The Prophet is no more! The people _are_ free! Only one last blighter remains…Booker DeWitt! Zealot of Comstock! You sent my men to death! You lied to me and you now make your way here but you are too late! They're dead, all of them! You will not leave this place alive!"

Two Handy-Men of the Vox pushed aside the crowd as they moved closer, the rest of the people taking out and readying their weapons.

"We're surrounded," Booker whispered.

A sharp screech echoed in the air above them.

"Not at all," Annabeth stated as her hands shot forth to grasp from his jacket the Songbird Flute. "_Divebomb_!"

The Return to Sender rose in the air from Booker's hands as the bullets came against the three of them. He gritted his teeth as he could feel the blood slowly pool down from his nose, the bullets condensing into a single ball in front of him as he held the position.

Songbird screamed as he fell down on the rooftop, slamming its giant hands against the ground.

"It's not over lass!" Cornelius' words gave reason to Booker's dread…as another flute appeared in the man's hands. "I will not give you a man's death, tin man!"

The very same four notes echoed in the air, as Songbird's eyes resettled to a dark shade of red. The claw that had once been swatting away Vox now turned to Booker, and with a strong punch shattered through the Vigor held shield and sent the man to crash back and through the air. Booker's sight unfocused, as he heard the screams of his daughters while Songbird followed him in mid-air to finish him.

Was this the end?

_Delta was fated to die, and forced to obey, but what he left to the world…that was his choice._

_Jack was forced to obey, but free to choose and leave behind what he wished._

_Andrew Ryan was free to do, but fated to die leaving behind Rapture._

_Live. Lived. Will live. Present, Past, Future. The Present doesn't exist. The past is a fleeting memory and the future is uncertain._

_There is no end, as long as you refuse to back down, Booker…so the inevitable question that sparks the theory of whether a human is truly able to defy fate or not is the following, DeWitt: do you yield?_

Songbird's right fist came at him as he was in mid-air, blood freely falling once more from his open wounds, pain dulled by the morphine running through his body as he could see the blurred form of the machine looming closer.

_The odds are stacked —the fate is always one of death as long as you refuse to fight…_

Two Annas held him, the third drowned him…

_You can fight this, Booker. You cannot trim a tree and expect spring to leave the branch unattended. Everything grows, even choices. Choose DeWitt. Choose._

Songbird was closer, a Sky-Line passed next to Booker.

He felt so tired…

_You know, in one future you are Songbird._

There was the tear in front of Songbird's chest once more.

_In another, you are a Big Daddy._

The Tear was visible, a streak of grey in the blurred brown smudge that was Songbird.

_In one more, the roles are reversed and you are Anna's son, and she is the one who heads off to save you._

The mental images were horrible, and he cracked a grin as he fell within a cloud of white.

_Then again, maybe the problem is that you have been so long unable to choose that you can't make a choice: you no longer remember how._

_But every problem has a solution…doesn't it?_

And just as Songbird's claw was about to hit him, he rolled in mid-air. The Crow's coffin impacted against the claw, absorbing much of the damage as he was swung to the side. His breath was ragged and the air was thin. He felt as if he was just about to pass out, but he still lived on. He still was there…

He…

_Savior or Harvester? Gatherer or Reaper? You can have one, but you can't have both. You can be a merciful savior or a vengeful spirit of death…but you can't be both. _

_Which one do you choose, Booker?_

"Anna," he whispered. "I'm sorry…" he croaked out.

_Make. A. Choice!_

And as Booker's eyes closed, Songbird flapped its hastily repaired wings and flew back upwards. The man was dead after all…there was no need to pursue.

Somewhere, up above in the middle of Comstock's mansion, a machine hummed to life.

It was a strange machine, something that had been taken from one of the Lutece tears and examined closely, but which never had been able to work…at least not until a man had begun repairing it, a man that had arrived as nothing more than a mechanic and had risen to gather quite the bit of appreciation. The man had been a quick thinker, an apt listener and was a surprisingly faithful individual.

Of course the repairs would take quite a bit, but the man wasn't worried about that —not at all, since he was waiting for someone to walk out of there soon— and had thus barricaded the door from the inside.

The Vox had ignored the room —since it was in the cellar after all.

And so twirling his wrench, Jack Ryan waited patiently for the Vita-Chamber to turn online.

The Chamber did, and as a body stumbled outside perfectly intact and repaired, teleported straight out of the battle. The Vita-Chamber then spluttered and burned, as the energy requirements far exceeded what nineteen-twelve could produce with the Shock Jockey.

"Where am I?" Booker's voice came out slurred, as he slowly stood up. The ground was dusty and the air stale, as his eyes travelled up to the figure wearing a thick wool pullover and a pair of brown trousers. The man looked like a pale imitation of Andrew Ryan, if not for the fact he was visibly younger and with chain-tattoos on his wrists.

"The correct answer is…"

"When," Booker snapped. "But I'm in a hurry, you know?"

"I know, I know," Jack chuckled as he brought his right hand forward. "Name's Jack, Jack Ryan. Robert is sorry he can't be here in person, but he told me to tell you that if everything worked correctly you should still be alive by now. If it didn't work, then I had to take up your spot…seems I'm done then."

"What do you mean?"

"Come on Booker, you can't face an army alone. I mean, sure you can try…but you can't," Jack walked forward then, his smile positively amused. "Sometimes, a choice is needed. So, what will it be?" he tapped to a safe next to him, before pointing at the selection of armaments that stood in a locker on the far side of the room. "The safe and the locker are keyed with a set of numbers I know alone. You can choose, no…let's say you _have_ to choose one. The other will explode when the first is opened. Are you a Savior or a Harvester? Do you want the plasmids, the gene tonics and the strength of Adam, or do you prefer the weapons and the science of Rapture? You can't have both DeWitt, so…choose."

Booker blinked.

He looked at Jack, before carefully letting his eyes travel to where the weapons were stashed. There was something eerie with how they glinted, how thee seemed to give off lights from strange modules attached to them. It was…it was ghastly and awe inspiring. He had seen a crossbow of Rapture, but if he used the weapons…would he find the ammunition? And weren't the Plasmids too requiring Eve?

He…

"Come with me," he spoke then, bringing up his right hand. "We're in this together, aren't we? You're me and I'm you…so let's just…go. You don't need weapons or Tonics to make a difference. You only need yourself."

Jack laughed before shaking his head. "I knew you'd see right through it. Choices aren't only made of righteousness. Sometimes a choice hides a can of worms so ravenous they can feast upon the flesh of whoever chooses."

Jack Ryan, hero of Rapture, disappeared into thin grey mist, as it passed straight through Booker.

"_It's okay, that's not a child anymore." Atlas' voice came through the radio._

_But she is crying, isn't she? The little girl is crying._

"_Please, do not hurt her!" the German thick voice yells._

"_There is another way…" she pleads again._

"_No! No!" the child is so frail, so tiny. His hands near the face, gaunt and grey. The yellow eyes widen in fear._

_Rosy cheeks stare with bright eyes afterwards…_

"_Thank you."_

_The path of the righteous is not always easy…the reward will become clear with time._

_Thank you._

"That…that was strange," Booker croaked out as he turned to give one last longing glance at…at nothing.

There was no safe and there were no weapons. Had they ever been there to begin with? He was still alive, wasn't he? The Vita-Chamber seemed to fade away slowly, crumbling to dust as he watched it disappear. Booker spared one last glance at the dark and musky cellar, that somehow seemed to smell of saltwater, and then he stepped through the door and began to climb.

The light blinded him as he emerged in the garden of Comstock's house, where three Vox were in the process of manhandling a weaponless guardsman.

"Please, I have family!"

"I had one too!" one of the Vox snarled. "My son wasn't good enough to work, so they killed him! Well sonny, now it's your turn…"

Booker's hand went to the Crow's sword as he palmed it in his right hand.

"No, please…no!"

Booker's Sky-Hook tore through the head of the closest Vox, as his right hand slammed the sword in the guts of the second one. The third tried to bring up the alarm, but he was faster as he morphed into the Murder of Crows to feast upon the man's body. The moment he reappeared as a whole man, the guard was looking at him with fright.

"M-My lord Zealot…"

"Get out of here," he snapped. "Move it," he added carefully as the guard stared at him a second more, before quickly scampering to her feet and running away. Booker's wrists itched in that instant. He slowly brought his gaze down on them, and blinked as he saw a single ring form on them.

It was similar to Jack's own, but yet different as it was made of only one of the rings…was it a Nostrum of sorts? Or maybe some sort of Plasmid that had 'passed on' to him? He shook his head: he'd query the mystery of it later.

The garden was filled with rose bushes in bloom, as well as various flowers of delicate fragrances and bright colors. The smell was overpowering to say the least, as a light hum came through the speakers placed throughout the mansion.

"This is Daisy Fitzroy! We have captured the mansion and are holding hostage the Lamb! Citizens of Columbia, the time has come for the workers to rebel! People of the Vox, rise and fight towards glory! We ain't going to be slaves any longer!"

Booker's right hand twitched for his gun, as he walked out of the gardens and into the halls of the ground floor. If he could make his way past this and to the elevator…he knew that Daisy had to be in the general control room. Once, the mansion had been a haunting place for him to walk through, filled with darkness and Boys of Silence screaming around.

Now it was literally painted with vibrant colors of red and orange, the dying sun's rays illuminating through the polished or broken windows. The screams of the dying and the whimpers of the abused mixed with the noise of broken furniture and laughter.

He could have changed his clothes, but he supposed he could live with what he had.

He walked carefully around the corner, and there he stilled again. The corridor held the stairs to his right, but slightly further was a Fireman, coughing and wheezing as a Vox Handy-man slammed him against the wall.

This wasn't supposed to be his fight.

So why was he moving forward, with the blades of his Sky-Hook twirling murderously?

The moment the blades crashed with the porcelain hand of the Handy-Man, Undertow was unleashed making the circuitry spark as the mixture of man and machine screamed. Slamming his Sky-Hook again against the machine's glass heart —always eerie to watch it beat through the panel— Booker poured another wave of water from his deformed hand.

The Handy-man staggered backwards, the surprise attack enough to make him lose the initiative. Without it, it was really like smashing a heart in a jar. The pistol fired straight into the glass, the bullets ricocheting as it cracked.

"I'm sorry!" the Handy-Man yelled. "Don't—"

And then the Fireman tossed his own Devil's kiss grenade at the beast, detonating point-blank on the glass and reducing to mush the heart. The machine-man buzzed, before falling on its knees and then convulsing on the floor for a few seconds.

In the following silence, the Fireman coughed as he slowly staggered to his feet with his furnace sputtering.

"Thanks…" he muttered, his gaze settling on him. "Reckon all hope is lost?" he coughed again furiously.

"Just get out of here," Booker sighed. "I'll see what I can do."

"All right," the other nodded. "Take this: reckon you might need it more than me."

The moment the Fireman said that, he dropped the furnace and removed from within his ample suit the lockbox. "There should be something to snack on, as you go your way."

"Chocolate?"

"With the heat I have? Nah. Can't even get a nice drink…I'll try and hit a bar or whatever, might manage to get piss drunk before the Vox comes knocking."

Then the Fireman left, leaving behind the furnace which slowly stopped emanating heat and turned itself off.

The itch on his wrists returned, forcing him to start scratching as he realized another ring had chained itself to the first one tattooed. It didn't take a genius to realize they were forming the Chain of Industry that Andrew Ryan had professed so much, and that had ended up as a tattoo of chains on Jack's wrists…a tattoo that had also symbolized the slavery to the words 'Would you kindly'.

He breathed slowly, as he carefully pried open the lockbox, sighing as he extracted from it a small blue bottle filled with Salts and a first-aid kit. There also was a pack of dried apples.

He nearly choked as he hastily ate a few of the sweet things. He drank down the salt replenisher afterwards, albeit it only worsened the condition of his already thirsty throat.

Still, a thirsty throat was the least of his problems.

The screech of Songbird reached his ears again, but this time he ignored it in favor of reaching for the lift. The pushed button brought him up one level, though the silence of the cubicle was actually deafening, when compared to the screams one heard through the entire madman's place.

Rather than reaching for the Atrium, the lift seemed to rise way above it, outright ignoring many of the usual stops it had done the first time, as if it was directed to—

"Mr. DeWitt," Rosalind spoke calmly right in front of him, behind the panel of glass.

Somehow, the fact that the woman's face was actually displaying an angry and scornful glare was only seconded by the creaking and the groaning of the lift itself. The door didn't budge as he tried to slam against it.

"You have some _explanations_ to do." The woman spoke calmly. "Depending on the answer, we might reach an understanding."

There was an audible snap, as the lift itself banged against the side of the elevator shaft.

"Should you prove…unable to, the maintenance of this lift will undoubtedly be rescheduled for all the years it has been of service, just to make sure it would snap today, in this precise instant and moment of time."

There was a sort of smile on Rosalind's face now, one that actually made him shudder.

"Now, Mr. DeWitt, tell me the truth."

And with that, the pearly white teeth of Rosalind gleamed…

As Booker actually found himself backed against his jailer, the 'scientist' as he stood there powerless…just like a lab rat which is about to be terminated, since the experimented has ended and all…

**Author's notes**

**And another chapter's done.**

**That answers where the 'Booker' for this reality's Anna went. **

**It was a Booker who took a life-disfiguring wound (in place of Cornelius) and not only sold his daughter to Comstock…he actually **_**followed**_** him through at a later date (Luteces) losing in the mid-time the knowledge of who he was and what he had to do. (Like our Booker does)**

**And because of that…well, he ends up in the Crows and becomes a Zealot.**

**(Suggestion is to listen to 'Beast of America' while reading there's a 'call-out' in the middle of the fight between the two Bookers.)**

'**Jack' has been assimilated. (For we are the Zerg, and we will consume and evolve)**

**The Nostrum post-Songbird's scuffle is a tattoo one! **

**And we are nearing the end of the story gents.**

**(People start crying)**

**Now, now, stop your tears!**

**(We don't want this to end!)**

**I said stop your tears!**

**There are a bit of symbolisms/similarities in this chapter: try and find them all! That said, Comstock isn't dead in 'this' reality…he's just misplaced. Like the two Annas aren't dead…**

**The Alternate-Anna is going to ask herself those questions. The reason the 'twin' lie worked was simply because in the spur of the moment, there wasn't much time for anything else. 'Sisterly' bonding will come in the next chapter.**

**And Booker's dressed like a Zealot of the Lady, except for the cowl. **

**And Slate makes his appearance! (Again!) and he isn't happy for the way his men died…at all…**


	18. Would You Kindly Choose?

**Queasy and Angsty chapter ahead! Readers be forewarned!**

Sometimes

Chapter Eighteen

"Let me go," he snarled through the glass panel. Rosalind seemed unaffected, as she merely tightened her tie a bit more.

The woman hummed as she checked her golden watch, which she apparently had held till then in her breast-pocket. "I suppose I'll have to be frank with you, Mr. DeWitt: I'm not playing any game here. I want the truth, and you can either give it to me or I can claim it by myself. Either ways you'll end up talking."

"I'm not telling you anything, you psychopathic bitch!"

"And here we go," Rosalind smiled. "Was it that difficult?"

"What are you talking about?" Booker's perplexity lasted for a second, before a thought slammed into his brain with the same strength as a freighter-train.

Universes were born by a choice that either was or was not. To go right or left created two distinctive universes from the choice, meaning that if Rosalind was actually everywhere at the same time…

"Good of you to catch up," Rosalind smiled. "I can ask all of you Bookers trapped within this very same lift, and one of you will eventually crack or speak because another one won't. Oh how endearing of one of you to try the silent game…" her smile was warm, but with an undertone that made her look like a shark ready to strike its bloodied prey.

"So tell me, Mr. DeWitt, where is Robert?"

Booker growled, gritting his teeth as he saw her face turn positively murderous. "Lying won't work, Booker! He is not in Rapture."

_I did meet him there!_

Booker stammered as he felt his headache pound against his brain. Was someone hitting him with a wrench now?

"You believed in meeting him there of course, but that doesn't change the fact that he _isn't_ there!"

_What is and is seen is rarely the same thing, right?_

"Let me go and save my daughter, please," he whispered. His right hand banging against the glass panel. "_Please_."

"There isn't even your daughter among them, Booker DeWitt," Rosalind remarked snappishly. "You killed your own daughter. At least, I suppose you are the one who did that."

"What?" his throat hitched. What was—

"Let me put it this way, DeWitt," Rosalind began slowly, bringing her right hand up with her palm open. There was a coin in it, and as she held it she spun it around to show two faces —one crying, the other laughing.

"In one universe, your wife dies of childbirth. In another, she doesn't. In one universe you do your best for your little Anna, you stop drinking, you get a nice, paying job and you bring her up right. In another, you are angry at her for the life she has taken, and you barely give her what she needs to survive another day. One night, her screams are too much for you to take."

_He is awakened by her cries. Why can't she…_

"No. NO! That didn't…that wasn't—" Booker's hands went to the sides of his head, as he closed his eyes shut and screamed his refusal. It wasn't possible, he would never…would he?

_Savior __**or**__**reaper**__. Gatherer __**or**__**harvester**__._

_You can't have heads without tails now, can you?_

"And you, yes _you_ and only _you_ DeWitt, enter the room your child is crying in, grab a pillow and then, with _**your**_ very own hands…"

The silence was evocative of the fact that Rosalind's hand had launched the coin in mid-air, before slamming it down on the other palm and slamming it right against the glass panel. The image depicted on the coin was enough to make tears come to his eyes. There wasn't a face on it any longer, only an etched depiction of a man pushing both hands into a crib…

Smothering his daughter to death.

_Now she's quiet forever._

"_THAT'S NOT TRUE_!" he screamed slamming his Sky-Hook at the glass panel —why wouldn't it _shatter_!? It wasn't real! It couldn't be real!

"Seventy-six Bookers, Mr. Dewitt! Seventy-six we sent to stop the cycle of Comstock, you think we choose them from universes where Annas were around? You think we chose them from places where they were rich, happy, or otherwise unable to hold the drive to save their own daughter? To _have a second chance_?"

There was a smug smile on Rosalind's lips, as she coyly added. "Albeit in your case…this is your third chance, isn't it?"

"I…I didn't do it," he sobbed. "I didn't…"

"Oh, but you did." Rosalind rebuffed him gently. "Mr. DeWitt, I am not judging you. You did what you thought was right. She was screaming and crying because of hunger and thirst, hoping to attract the attention of her father, of the one who sometimes smiled and fed her and cleaned her. Little Anna was hoping for a hug, maybe? She didn't understand why you brought down the pillow, she didn't understand why her breath was lacking…but in her tiny heart she still loved you, you know, two days later she would have said the 'B' of Booker while giggling." Rosalind sighed as she shook her head slowly.

"A real pity."

Booker slammed one last time his hand against the panel, clenching into a fist as he fell on his knees, tears streaking down his chin.

"And let me tell you this, DeWitt: if you go on, if you fight on, if you battle on and on…_in the end it will not matter_. What you're trying to do, 'absorbing' your other selves' decisions and consequences is useless in the long run. The moment an ocean is forced within the boundaries of a stream, the moment it is forced to follow a line rather than a ramification of such is the moment the ground shatters and breaks. You will die DeWitt —kill Comstock, destroy the Syphon, and you'll end up back in time again. Only this time there will be no Jack Ryan, no Andrew, nobody whom you are now telling me of will help you or be there for you and _you will die_!" Rosalind chuckled.

"And in your death, before time, you will tear asunder all Bookers, destroy all Ryans, and kill all Annas in the process too. You will have no other choice on this, DeWitt…And I am telling you this now, because if I have to spend eternity without Robert…then you will spend your remaining time wracked in the guilt, encircled by the encroaching moment of darkness where you will find out…that you never had a choice, because _I will take them all away from you!_"

And then the second cable snapped, and as the lift began to fall, he barely heard the last screamed words of Rosalind.

"Good day to you, DeWitt!"

And then the lift slammed against the lower levels of Comstock mansion, sending him to crash as his shield broke from the impact. The coffin of the Crow shattered too, probably having overused its welcome. Booker laid down there in silence, his eyes closed as he breathed slowly. His muscles ached, but that wasn't what really held him down.

The weight of sin, the sinner's guilt…he knew Comstock had been a monster from the moment he had heard the chilling words on how Elizabeth's sickness was hope. He knew Zachary had been a horrible person, an evil man and a madman…but he hadn't understood that all that evil, all that sickness…was also inside of him from the very beginning.

How could he? How could he have done that?

He had killed his own daughter.

There wasn't an Anna out there for him to save. He was number Seventy-Seven. He was the Seventy-Seventh Booker. Like all those behind him…had they killed their Annas too? The first one, maybe, had only sold her.

He actually was thankful for that. Between selling his daughter and eventually killing her…which was the best choice?

If only he hadn't come along.

If only he hadn't been born.

_We all make choices…but in the end, our choices make us._

"Would you kindly stand up?" a voice spoke to him smoothly, as a hand grabbed him by the elbow joint. "Stand now," the tone was harsher, as a slap slammed against the side of Booker's face. He winced and slowly opened his eyes, focusing on the figure of Andrew Ryan, holding his metal gold club with his left hand.

"Leave me alone," Booker slurred, only for another slap to reach him.

"I have never disciplined someone like this before," Andrew remarked amused. "It is a refreshing experience I suppose…but I grow tired of this."

"Fuck. Off."

Andrew Ryan sighed…it was going to be a long hour.

Meanwhile, deep within the belly of one of the Vox's hoverboats, Annabeth and Anna stood huddled together in a corner, trapped within a cage.

"I'm scared," Anna whispered. "Where's dad?"

"Booker will come around," Annabeth answered back. "He always comes."

Even when she was just about to be shackled by the surgery. Even when she had intimidated him by promising him a typhoon if he dared stop her…he had always come around. She had tried to open a tear, but that had actually failed spectacularly. She didn't want to risk going through one however —what if she never managed to get back to where Booker was?

Her best bet was to wait and see.

"Why don't you call him father?" Anna asked.

"He's been Booker to me for a long time," Annabeth replied, holding her knees with her hands. "Comes natural, I think."

"You think…you think he doesn't like it, when I call him father?" Anna asked back warily. "I'm new at this —the only father I ever had before was Comstock, and he wasn't really around at all."

"Better that way," Annabeth snorted. "Zachary is a monster."

"You knew him too?" Anna frowned. "Why didn't I see you with father before?"

Annabeth bit her lip, before turning her face sideways. "I was elsewhere. Took me a while to find father again."

"He never spoke about you before," Anna muttered. "You sure he'll come?" there was a slight fearful tone in her voice, and Annabeth couldn't help but wince slightly. This girl was just like she had been, if with far less blood on her hands than she.

"He will," Annabeth seemed so certain of it that there just was no way to refute again —the glint in her eyes said it all. Booker would come, and nothing short of an earth shattering revelation would keep him away.

"Can you tell me more about dad?" Anna asked then, her voice hesitant. "Like, what does he like to drink?"

That was a good question. One that Annabeth hadn't the answer to, but she could improvise…how difficult could it be?

"Rye Whiskey," she slipped out. "That and…and he has a general liking to sweets."

Anna giggled. "He has a sweet tooth?"

"Sweetest you'll ever see," Annabeth chuckled back. "I'm all: Booker! Your teeth are going to rot! And he's all: but I eat an apple afterwards!"

Anna smiled gingerly at that, before mumbling. "I hope I'll have the time to get to know him," she whispered as tears began to streak down her face. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"This. All this… I can't do this," her breath hitched. "I…I was taken in the tower you know? I mean, I asked dad and he told me Comstock was afraid of me, but I didn't understand why at the time. He told me. He told me while he held me prisoner. He said I was a growing mass of cancer, a sack of flesh whose only purpose was to be the perfect battery for the generator. He…he cycled through my mother the syphon's radiations, only to get me…an organic battery," her laughter was hysterical now. "And once he uses me everything will be over. He'll get whatever the hell it is he wants."

Annabeth remained silent as she gently lowered her hand on the girl's shoulders.

"He won't get you," she whispered then, hugging her other self delicately. "We won't let him."

"He always gets what he wants," Anna said in a low cracked voice. "Always."

"Then he's about to get some of the DeWitt's famous medicine in 'cycle breaking'," Annabeth snorted back, caressing the girl's hair. "And when that's done, we'll all go to Paris."

"You like Paris too?"

"Like? I _adore_ the city!"

The Vox populi assigned to guard the cargo snorted from his spot away from sight of the two girls. He had hoped to hear something interesting, and this…this was interesting. Comstock had a weapon that worked with his own daughter as a battery? That sick fuck was really beyond any imagination…

Still, if that was true there was only one place such a weapon could be…

Comstock's personal Zeppelin.

It was time Daisy Fitzroy was warned.

Beneath the concrete floors of Comstock's mansion, Andrew Ryan brought up his golf cue as he slowly and carefully took aim for an aptly placed cup on the floor. Booker DeWitt looked at the creator of Rapture with apathy in his eyes, but the other man merely scoffed and went on playing his game.

"So you were angry at a screaming infant, and you acted rashly," Andrew remarked. "It is something most certainly horrendous, but it was your choice. Maybe that by itself is why you can't aptly choose? You made a bad choice, and that brought you to avoid making others in a subconscious manner? Maybe you told yourself 'I made something wrong, please God take away my ability to choose!' and maybe, just maybe, god did indeed listen."

"Where did the man who wrote 'No gods, only man' on a banner go?" Booker snorted back venomously.

"He had time to think and to grow, away from Fontaine," Andrew said back. "You see, I did die and I'm sure that swimming somewhere in your brain are the memories of my final moments, but you should understand that I am not 'really' myself. You think the Andrew Ryan that Jack encountered would stop by and try to talk back into action an imbecile such as yourself? No, Andrew Ryan would be an opportunistic soul who'd rather claim your entire soul for his own affairs. You seem to be forgetting something, Booker…and that is that just as you have desires and dreams…so do we," the man chuckled.

"The only difference is that ours were sated long time ago, yours? Yours are still out there. This is another chance to right the wrongs, and at the same time a way to make sure everything flows correctly. Let us say you have streams of energy tied to circuits. All circuits in the end start at the same point and lead at the same end. The trouble comes when you try to reduce the number of circuits. Every circuit infinitively cuts itself into two…so what you need to do is manage to find the root of all problems and straighten everything else out as you walk your way through…but where does everything begin, I wonder?"

"You know," Booker mumbled. "I'm so tired of this, I'm just going to go ahead and say that it's crap. You hear the Lutece: it's been going on since the beginning of the universe. You can't just pop back there and…I don't know: shoot the thing dead."

"Then just go back to when the Lutece invented Universe-Travelling, and kill them all," Andrew shrugged. "Remove the means to travel through the universes, and everything would be settled, right?"

"No," Booker shook his head. "You can't go back in time. Not without…quite a bit of energy."

"Oh? Then tell me what that energy is," Andrew said, taking a more careful aim with his golf club. "Is it electricity? Is it heat? Energy is heat to begin with, but it has to come from somewhere doesn't it? I mean, turbines move and generate current because they are powered by the water flowing through, right? So what charges a living, breathing machine that opens tears? What energy is used? What exactly is absorbed and what is released? Life, down to its truly basic form is not DNA or blood: it is heat. It is energy. It is the wonder of an atom spinning around itself its electrons and even further down the road it will still be heat. Minuscule amounts of energy perhaps, but _still_ those, _precisely those_, are what make the bricks of reality."

"Can't you get to the point?" Booker snapped as he let out a ragged breath. He couldn't stand this lecture. If only he could actually see an exit in this pitch-black darkness…there was only him, Andrew Ryan, the Golf cue and a light from the rock ceiling illuminating them. Some sort of artist would probably paint a pretty picture of it.

He just wanted an exit.

"Radiations, down to their basic forms, are nothing more than the movement of specific elements. Moving electrons and moving quantums is quite the same thing, once you get the hang of it." The golf club swung, and a Tear appeared to display the bright sky of Columbia. "Yet the question for our situation revolves around the hypothetical fourth dimension: that of time," Andrew shrugged as he moved the golf club again, closing the Tear in a second.

"You can travel to an alternate reality where things have happened earlier or are yet to happen, but you can't go back in time in your very own reality now, can you? Yet here you are. Care to explain why? What's the difference?"

"I don't know…Elizabeth opened up the Tear?"

"To move into a two-directional plane you need an X-axis and a Y-axis, Booker," Andrew Ryan whispered. "To move through a cube, you need a Z-axis. Now, to move through the universes you can add the Tear-Axis, 'wishful thinking' is what Elizabeth told you the first time around, didn't she? But then again, she only centered it on windows, to see but never to cross the threshold of. When she began to pass through them, and you followed…did the world adapt, or did you simply jump elsewhere? And if you jumped, what of those who instead belonged to that reality? What of them, DeWitt? You know the answer, do you not?"

"In one of them…there were Voxophones of me dead," he admitted quietly. "What of those Annas then?"

"The crux of the matter is that for every dimension your daughter hopped into, she wishfully believed her the only one...multiple hers were out of the equation back then, and the universe…well, the universe can be very accommodating indeed!" Andrew chuckled, "if two memories are perfectly identical, is there an overwrite DeWitt? The answer is no. Like a virus, a tiny, itsy virus…your daughter consumed all the other Annas as she walked through those universes. They never felt a thing, or saw a thing…of course."

"You're going around the problem," Booker whispered, his eyes narrowing.

"Why, of course I am! Because Booker, if anyone could mess with Time, then what of the other you? Think about infinity…your head hurts, doesn't it?"

There was a headache mounting, now that he was thinking about it.

"I could ask you the secret of life right now, and you wouldn't know the answer…but an infinite amount of you would try to answer me anyway, and among the infinite yous, one…one would give me the correct answer now, wouldn't he?"

The thought was chilling, as he snapped his eyes shot.

"So what? What is the point you're trying to make!?"

"The point, DeWitt, is that the human mind can only suffer so much stress before it fractures and breaks. The concept of Infinity? That's a load of _bullshit_!"

Booker's eyes widened as Andrew Ryan's metal cue slammed into his stomach, sending him reeling on the ground short of breath as his shield shattered.

"You think what I just said was the truth, you pathetical excuse of a man!? No man can understand infinity! No man can even come close to feel the consequence! And if no man can do that, then what do you make of the Lutece!?"

A kick sent him rolling in the darkness.

"Walk into the light, Booker DeWitt, understand…or be doomed to forever live in ignorance as you cradle your misery and your dying breaths."

Booker gasped as he slowly tried to stand up. A heavy weight slammed onto his spine, which probably would have shattered it had it not been for the slightly recharged shield. As it was, he was brought down on the ground again.

"Taste the dirt like the slave you are, DeWitt!" a kick to the ribs, and he was on his back, looking up at the eyes of Andrew Ryan. "A man chooses! A slave obeys! Fight or die DeWitt! Fight or die!" and as the golf club came down on him once more, Booker's Sky-Hook was brought forward, snapping the metal pole and proceeding through to slam into the man's right leg —it tore through it like butter as blood sprayed on the ground.

"Shut up!" he snarled as he grabbed the Sky-Hook, readying himself to pound it straight into Andrew Ryan's face…only to find the man smiling.

"You're a fighter, DeWitt, not a thinker," Ryan whispered hoarsely. "Fight. Kill. Maim. Burn. Destroy. Leave the thinking to _us_, and now…now choose." Andrew Ryan's face morphed into that of Zachary Comstock.

"_MERCY OR REVENGE, DEWITT_!?" the old white haired face screamed at him. "_Choose_!" he spat out.

"Get off me!" Booker screamed as he moved backwards. Zachary's face chuckled grimly, as it coughed out blood.

"You can't run away from the truth, Booker. It will hunt you down, it will hold you…and it will _smother you in the crib._"

_He smothered her in the crib._

_Smother him in the crib._

"_We'll smother him in the crib."_

"I. Am. Not. Comstock!" he yelled as he charged back, slamming his Sky-Hook straight through the man's face. "I am not him! _I AM NOT COMSTOCK! I AM NOT THE PROPHET_!"

And just as he brought his hand up for the final blow…Andrew Ryan's face looked back at him, smashed and nearly destroyed…and yet still talking.

"You could…have…fooled…me, _murderer_."

And then the blades slammed down on Andrew Ryan's face, killing the man, destroying him, as the body disappeared into the grey thin mist that seemed to seep right through him.

"_I chose to build Rapture, but my city was betrayed by the weak. So I ask you my friend, if you live with pride, would you kill the innocent? Would you sacrifice your humanity? We all make choices, but in the end, our choices make us…"_

_There's a woman there, and her neck looks so wrong now, snapped as she coughs her last ragged breaths. She dared…she dared. He had wanted a child, and yet it had been sold. Maybe anger wasn't the answer…but it felt good, didn't it?_

"_Could I have made mistakes? One does not build cities if one is guided by doubt. But can one govern in absolute certainty?"_

_Fontaine, Atlas…they swim around each other like sharks…whether he looked at Atlas' actions, he couldn't help but compare them to Fontaine. What one man did…another seemed to follow by the letter._

"_A season for all things: a time to live, and a time to die. A time to build, and a time...to destroy!"_

_Rapture will fall, and so be it. Everything will end eventually, nothing lives forever. No dream can last the rot of time and no ideas can survive the meeting with the others. Humanity's corruption rotted the very bones of my city, my pride and my jewel…but it will not fall alone. I WILL NOT FALL ALONE._

"_Desperate times call for desperate measures."_

_Fight. Kill. Murder and maim all those that oppose you. Betrayers must pay, must they not? They have to, they are parasites after all!_

"_Imagine the will it took to create a place like this. And what have you built? Nothing. You can only loot and break. You're not a man; you're just a termite at Versailles."_

_Comstock built Columbia._

_Andrew Ryan built Rapture._

_Jack destroyed Rapture._

_Booker DeWitt tore apart Columbia._

_It never was a question of why. There never was a reason for it. It just happened along the way, didn't it?_

_You could have avoided the bloodshed._

_No, you couldn't have._

_You can't tug the chain and expect it to last forever._

_Everything must snap eventually._

_Everything must fall eventually._

_To last forever, that is a hubris that cannot be tolerated._

_Those who play the game of god must learn to face the consequences!_

_Revenge…_

_So sweet the name and so ripe the fruit that is plucked by violence._

And Booker's breath returned as he stumbled out of the darkness and into the light.

A small red vial stood where once the cup and the golf ball were. Adam called to him and sung a tale of might and power. Fontaine's wrathful screams as he died pierced by the needles of the little sisters slammed into his brain, mixed with the unholy blasphemous words of Andrew Ryan who claimed that who could profit should. Tinged in the deep depths of faith that Zachary Comstock heralded, Booker DeWitt's mind was a battlefield.

A battlefield that slowly died down to a mere whisper as the bottle of Adam, what it held and what it could give…disappeared into thin air.

There was no-one in there except for the ghosts and him.

Had he gone mad, now?

Had he finally reached the hallucinations? Was this…were Andrew Ryan, Jack Ryan, Zachary…were they all part of an orchestrated illusion?

Yet as his wrists burned and chains linked themselves together one after the other, he couldn't believe this a dream.

As he stood slowly up, his breath steady and his eyes gleaming, he knew that for the cycle to come full term…

He'd have to hold his revenge.

_On himself, on the others, on everyone?_

_On the Lutece?_

_On Rosalind?_

_On Anna?_

_On…_

The drill of Delta slammed into his chest, as with an unholy wail the Big Daddy sent Booker to crash against a wall and past it, blinding him momentarily with the pain and the flashing light, as he stumbled into the lit room that held all the masks of Lincoln, of George Washington, of the Founding Fathers…and of Zachary Comstock.

And barging through the hole created by his body was Delta, enraged as if a grievous sin had just then been committed…

And in a certain way it was true and wrong at the same time.

Delta wasn't his last enemy, but he was his last moral choice.

Zachary had been a force of evil, Jack one of good. Andrew Ryan had been the rot and the cold calculative gleam of Rapture…and Delta had been its light, its hope and its future.

You couldn't complete a circle with only one half of the equation.

You needed the eyes of the ruler…and those of the slave.

As his chest began to mend and the bones to reset with the shield recharging, Booker wobbled back to his feet and tightened his hold on the last syringe from within his pockets.

The drill of the Big Daddy twirled.

The Sky-Hook of Booker sprung into life.

And in the middle of them, the two metal contraptions met in a fiery show of sparks.

_Gatherer or Harvester..._

_It doesn't matter, if the fate you chose was not of your own making._

**Author's notes**

**AND BADUM.**

**You know, when Booker is with Anna about to see the truth and says 'let's smother him in the crib'…I actually had the chills.**

**Especially if you consider how an indebted alcoholic could actually work if he had to keep his daughter with him in his office.**

**The answer? Somebody's mind snapped quite a bit earlier…tsk, poor DeWitt.**

**Will the cycle be unbroken?**

**Of course it will! Trust in Shade, for he shall be your pastor through these thick waves of sins!**

**(And what revelations will Delta bring? Who knows!)**

**As always rest assured…there will be a happy ending. (I'm a sucker for those. I know I shouldn't, but I am. I was writing 'Anna's' crib-death with my eyes stinging slightly)**

**Rosalind will get what she is due…**

**And concerning the 'crossover' problem…it's more of the definition of crossover. If I brought Jack or Andrew as characters into Columbia for more than their 'scenes' then it would be a crossover. It isn't because they are a part of the Alternate Realities plot-point with the fact that they are all alternates of Booker in some way or another.**

**As always I write daily, inspired by my 'fickle bitch of a muse' (quoting someone from Fort Frolic here!) and because of that no, nothing was prewritten at all. There is no 'buffer' zone. I write, I reach a good number of words, I upload.**

**(Which is why sometimes grammar errors slip in, I don't 'recheck' what I write…I steam-write through it all!)**

**This time Booker's decision isn't the 'Goody-Two-Shoes' one…but Ryan always had a way to get under your skin…didn't he?**

**(The 1****st**** person change in the midsts of Booker's 'thoughts' is wanted to increase tension)**


	19. The Mercy of the Father

Sometimes

Chapter Nineteen

The air was stale and dusty, as it soon heated up from the encounter of the metal equipment on each of the opponents' hands. The blades of the Sky-Hook blazed and spluttered as the drill of Delta did the same. In a moment, Booker's hand had gone to his Broadside, which he had then unloaded the entire magazine of against the Big Daddy's helmet.

It didn't even slow him down…

But it did piss him off.

The Incinerate plasmid burst from the behemoth's hand, forcing Booker to roll on the ground and avoid the crimson flames. Another whale-like roar and Delta charged slamming his right foot straight against his ribs. Booker screamed in pain as he flew in mid-air, ending up slammed against the shelf of masks.

As one of the masks fell next to him, displaying the eerily glinting eyes of Zachary, something —something deep down and deeply hidden— snapped. Screaming like a raving madman, Booker DeWitt stood up and charged again. This time he let the flames come, as he barged straight through them to pin Delta's hand with the Crow's sword.

It passed the limb from side to side, down to the hilt.

Blood gushed out as the drill came to swipe in front of Delta, staggering backwards Booker.

His right hand went to remove the blood from his mouth, as he spat out a few teeth together with the crimson liquid.

"Jack made it easy to kill you lot," he snarled. The next instant, he jumped backwards as he slammed on the ground a Devil's Kiss grenade. Booker groaned as he felt a slight dull pain settle where his right upper ribs were. It still didn't matter in the long run, as he stumbled back once more and fell right on a Heater Replica.

The one-shot weapon held at most eight shots in it…

But who was he to watch a gifted horse in the mouth?

The moment Delta charged through, the fire grenade exploded wreathing the man in the diving suit in flames. The first shot of the Heater slammed against the man's visor, cracking it. The time it took for the gun to recharge was enough for Delta to close the distance, grab the Heater and outright _break_ it.

The next moment, a swarm of bees emerged from his gloved hand. Booker morphed into the Murder of Crows, passing through Delta and scratching at his suit's joints and leather straps. Something had to give eventually. Something just had to.

Delta unhooked his drill in that moment, grasping at his other hand as he painfully removed the Crow's sword…before slamming it with the strength of Telekinesis straight at the point Booker would reappear.

With a sickening crunch, it literally ripped through his left limb, slicing apart his arm at the elbow joint.

Booker screamed as even morphine held its limit to the pure pain he was feeling in that moment. Blood began to pool down, covering in the crimson liquid his trousers and clothes as he hastily did the only thing he could think of to stem the blood.

He poured a Shock Jockey crystal on the wound.

The electricity sparked throughout the limb, deadening the nerves as the crystal took hold and charred the area. A Devil's Kiss grenade would have exploded on contact…this would last enough to cauterize.

In the midst of his delusional thoughts, Delta had closed the distance once more, wielding a Rivet Gun.

In seconds, rivets were shot. They hit their targets, slamming in Booker's stomach, chest and shoulders. Blood guzzled out as he fell on the ground, raggedly breathing as his sight lost focus.

"W-Why?" he coughed out, as he felt the icy tendrils of death loom over his body.

**Some enemies cannot be defeated.**

Delta spoke slowly, in a rumbling voice that seemed deep and belonging to a giant man, rather than a poor guy who ended up in the suit.

**I am a Big Daddy…protector, guardian…yet also tyrant and jailer. I held a bond with a little sister, but was I defined by the bond, or did the bond define me? Who was I before, I wonder? In the end it did not matter. What matters, is that you listen: Big Daddies were reputed fearsome and powerful, and yet they fell. Big Daddies were considered monsters of steel and Adam…and yet they fell.**

**Even the mightiest of protectors can die, DeWitt. For every one of them I faced, I always asked myself: could that had been me, had I not been paired with Eleanor? Could I have been chosen as a Rosie eventually? A Bouncer? What if I were in the other's Big Daddy's suit? What if I were the enemy, if only once? I too was reputed an unbeatable guardian, DeWitt…yet I died all the same. I died and I lived.**

**I died and yet I did not.**

**Why? Because I want to make things right, DeWitt. You fought or talked to the others, you spoke and convinced, you chose correctly or otherwise battled with might…**

**But I am the one you will listen to, Booker. I didn't kill men and women of Rapture for fun and sport. I didn't hunt down my own kin for game. I did it to save the little sisters. **

**Andrew Ryan called 'altruism' the sin of the parasite.**

**I call it the mercy of the strong on the weak. To be merciful is to be just, to be merciful is to give a man a second chance and hope for a better choice next time. Mercy is what gave you a second chance, DeWitt…**

**So you must understand, for every little sister I saved I found myself a little bit more, and with every step I took I learned more and more…no longer was I just a husk of a man bolted into a suit, no longer was I a mere monster ordered to follow and enslaved to obey.**

**I was free.**

**And with Freedom came the choices, and the consequences.**

Booker's eyes slowly closed, as he felt darkness embrace him.

**But my fate was sealed the moment I was put in the suit, Booker.**

He'd take a nap…he was so tired…

**Yours is not.**

A sting of something, breaking his skin.

The burning sensation of a liquid, swimming through his body.

The air returning to his lungs was welcomed, and not hated for the pain it sent.

As Booker opened his eyes, he stared into the cracked visor of Delta. The big daddy's right hand, giant and gloved, settled on his chin as it held him down. The cracks on the visor showed an eye, haunted and so similar to his own that he couldn't help but be hypnotized by it.

**My gift to you is my mercy, Booker. Take heed of my words, watch my actions…and from a father to another: do not forget, but forgive.**

**Forgive and strive to become better.**

**Forgive, Booker DeWitt…**

**Among all others, forgive yourself the most.**

**Not through baptism, not through that mockery of water upon your head, but through yourself. Only you can forgive yourself, Booker…and it is time you understood that.**

And then Delta broke into the thin grey mist that Booker was now used to seeing, as he merged straight through him.

"_For every choice, there is an echo. With each act, we change the world. One man chose a city, free of law and God, but others chose corruption and so the city fell. If the world was reborn at your image, would it be paradise or perdition?"_

_She spoke through the speakers of Rapture, and he heard her words._

_She called him monster, she dared say Eleanor was not his daughter and she bent his will to hers...and then he died._

_But in Rapture, you just can't seem to stay dead._

"_You are aware of your plight. Who I wonder would be so cruel? To force a mirror on a man with no face..."_

_He had a name once. The sun bathed his skin. He ended up in Rapture by happenchance, forced to remain he became a celebrity. One of the few who could speak of the sun without needing pictures, one of the few who could still hold a tanned skin obtained naturally. He wasn't made for Rapture, and Rapture made it known to him as he was brought to its darkest depths._

_Persephone…such a strange name to give to a prison._

_Such a strange place, to sell the livestock called man._

_And the man who sold him? Stanley Poole. He had written articles about him on the tribune, hadn't he?_

_Yet he cleansed the park, saved the little sisters…_

_And he forgave him._

_Why?_

_Because he had more than enough blood on his hands by that time...and one more life just wouldn't make a difference._

"_You had me under a gun... and yet you just walk away? No monster alive turns the other cheek. No monster does that. A thinking man does that."_

_Yes, he was not a monster. He was a man. He had always been a man, hidden beneath the suit, beneath the pain and the visor was a man…not a monster._

_He would not let Rapture win. He would not let the city turn him into an abomination._

_He was human._

_And humans…they knew forgiveness._

"_Today I saw one kneeling near a Gatherer's Garden and... crying."_

_His brothers of the Alpha series. They were humans, like him. Bonded maybe, but their will was for the rest unscathed. They fought for their daughters, for they were bonded to one and only one of them. That was all there was to them in life: live, breathe, harvest, protect and sleep._

_Simple life, wasn't it?_

_And when Alex the Great asked to be spared, he did that. Even as his past-self pleaded for his death, he let him go, deep into the sea to never return. He didn't stay there and think on a reason for it: he forgave and walked on._

_And when Augustus Sinclair was transformed into the Omega Big Daddy, the last of the Alpha series…_

_He was there, and he did what had to be done._

_And in the end, after everything that had happened…he didn't just die._

_His will lived on in Eleanor. What else could a father hope for, if not for his own child's well-being?_

_What else could a murderer like he had become ask for, if not to be able to redeem himself with the actions of his own child?_

_The last person he forgave wasn't Sofia Lamb, struggling for oxygen that Eleanor gave onto her freely._

_As Eleanor's needle came down, under the sunny sky, it wasn't fate or destiny he forgave last. _

_It was himself._

And Booker coughed and spluttered as he slowly stood on his feet, his brain firing pain signals as if it was on fire. He took a deep breath, before staggering backwards as his back hit the wall.

He closed his eyes slightly, letting fatigue wash over him.

He felt something pull at him, something similar to a rope or a pulley of sorts.

It was a…could he even call it a bond?

And it pointed in one direction.

He opened his eyes again, taking a step forward as he did that.

"I'm coming, Anna," he whispered.

And then, as a Tear opened in front of him, he stepped through it.

Hell has no fury, like a father's wrath.

Meanwhile Daisy Fitzroy was standing next to Cornelius Slate, both of them on the deck of one of the Vox Hoverboats, when Comstock's own personal Zeppelin came into view. The woman knew this would be a battle worth of being remembered: if they won, they would free the people of Columbia from the mad tyrant…and if they lost…they would still tear apart the Prophet's prophecies by killing the so-precious lamb.

Maybe, once, she wouldn't have reached this point. The girl was probably just a pawn, but what else could she do? She had yelled her beliefs and to go against them now, at this important point…

"Go grab the girls," she snapped to a Vox near him. He had been called Benjamin, if she recalled correctly…like the founding father…such a stupid idea.

Five minutes, only five minutes later, and Benjamin came flying out of the Hoverboat's deck, his neck snapped to pieces as blood sprayed freely.

Daisy wasn't much of a religious believer, but somehow she couldn't help but mutter a prayer to God as she nudged the now scared Vox near her to move forward and check.

Cornelius Slate stepped forth first, gun in hand. He took a few steps, inching closer to the stairs, when the noise of a Sky-Hook's blade overheating was heard. Leaving caution to the wind, Slate jumped in the hole, reaching for the prisoners' cage.

"DeWitt!" in the small and cramped quarters of below deck, Cornelius' gun was aimed at the Corporal of his regiment, the man who had brought his men to die a tin man's death. "How?" he breathed out, his eyes narrowing on the apparently unscathed figure of the man he had seen been carried away by Songbird, the man he had seen broken and practically killed.

And DeWitt spun around with his own gun aimed at Cornelius.

The two stared at one another, silent tension descending between the two.

"If I told you it wasn't my fault, would you believe me?" he whispered back.

"Dressed like you are, DeWitt?" Cornelius snarled. "Not a chance."

"I saved your life at Wounded Knee, Cornelius," Booker said. "You owe me."

"And you owe the men of my regiment, Corporal! You owe them their lives!"

The gun fired within a second, the bullet slamming against Booker's chest as the shield deflected it, losing potency.

"Don't make me kill you, Slate," Booker said as another bullet flew towards him. The shield was nearly depleted —just one more bullet for it to crack.

"Why? So that I can live when all my men died!? DeWitt! If you're half the man you claimed to be, if there's still some honor left in you…" Cornelius murmured, "Then kill me. Please…kill me."

"Why?"

The old man shuddered as he spat out to the side a mixture of blood and tobacco. "Because I'm dying. I told you Vigors weren't for everyone…and I took it, I took the Shock Jockey and it tore apart my insides. I'm not asking for pity, Booker. I'm asking for a man's death!"

Cornelius' gun moved to the side, aimed at the bars where the two Annas stood in wait.

"Kill me, DeWitt…kill me like a man!" and as Slate fired his shot and the girls closed their eyes, Booker charged in the middle of the bullet's path taking the damage as the shield cracked. His Sky-Hook tore straight through Slate's chest, killing the man in a feast of blood and gore.

"Thank you," Slate whispered with his hitched last breath. "See… you… in… hell..."

Just like a puppet with its strings cut, Slate fell on the ground, his body twitching through the last spasms of life the man held.

A frightened gasp brought Booker to spin around fast, as he returned to break through the cage's lock.

Anna was sobbing on Annabeth's chest, the scene having probably scared her senseless.

"Booker!" Annabeth chided him. Like it even was his fault! He was doing what he could! It wasn't like he hadn't tried to Tear a way inside the cage to begin with…but it had just failed. He supposed it had something to do with the other Anna's presence or similar.

"What?" he retorted. "I'm doing what I can here!"

"You're doing it wrong!" Annabeth snapped, "Just let me work on it from inside!" with a huff, she removed her own hairpin.

Booker stopped, actually blinking as he took a hesitant step back. "I'll keep them out of here then."

Annabeth huffed as she began to work on the lock. "You do that, Booker!"

He snorted as he crossed Slate's arms over his chest. He didn't have a flag to cover the body, but he could at least pay his respects. He supposed they had little time before Daisy sent someone inside to try and finish the job, but the fact that nobody else was coming down…that did seem a bit eerie.

"Comstock!" a megaphoned voice echoed upstairs —Daisy had probably decided to keep him 'trapped' down there with his daughters, rather than try and cajole him to come out. "We have your precious lamb! We control your machine of doom! Your time _has_ come!"

"Fitzroy," the mechanical voice of the Prophet came back from a machine probably. "Foolish woman…don't you see? You have lost, for my greatest man lies deep within your very own boat, freeing my lamb as we speak."

Booker froze at those words. He wasn't Comstock's man and that much was clear…but how did the man know that!?

"And because of that…I fear not the consequences."

The familiar sound of the rockets flying in the air reached Booker's ears as he dashed back —just in time for Annabeth to finish opening the lock. The first explosions rocked the boat, sending the girls in two opposite directions as the entire ship splintered apart and began to fall. The deafening sound of the explosions made Booker's ears ring, but it wasn't that what truly made the man's blood freeze.

Both Anna and Annabeth were falling now, separating one from the other as they fell. He had no doubt he could save one of them, but would the Sky-Hook hold two?

Songbird's haunting screech came right behind him, as the scream of Daisy reached his ears too.

"Grab one of them!" the dark-skinned woman screamed. "It will be enough!"

Was she screaming to him, or to Songbird?

He supposed he didn't have the time to ponder on it, as he flipped in mid-air before increasing his fall speed. He couldn't just save one of the girls. The problem was that if he did open a Tear, that wouldn't stop the momentum.

Probably that was the reason Annabeth wasn't opening one to save her life, but maybe was she counting on him to save her?

What had Robert said?

He would need _his_ Anna to reach the end.

But…but he couldn't leave the other girl to die, could he?

He couldn't just…just leave one to die.

_Take away choice from a man, and the slave that remains will need to be guided._

What?

"Thankfully…I am here," the whisper reached his ear as his neck snapped to his side. Falling right next to him was his Alternate self, the one who had killed in cold blood Fink and his own child without batting an eye-lid. "An eye for an eye," he whispered. "A tooth for a tooth…" his hands grabbed Booker's jacket as he spun in mid-air. "And no matter whom you choose to hate…this is for the good of us all."

And then he was thrown towards Annabeth's course, falling fast enough to reach the girl out with his hand outstretched.

"_BOOKER WHAT ARE YOU DOING_!?" the girl screamed as she fell. "_SAVE ANNA! I'M GOING TO_—" and then he grabbed her by the waist as they fell.

"_DAD_!" the other Anna screamed in fright, as the giant gloved hand of Songbird reached for her, Daisy laughing madly as she began to fly back upwards.

Beneath the clouds, the safety net of rails appeared as he hooked his Sky-Hook to the Sky-Line. Just as they began to follow it, the blades clunking noisily as the momentum came to an abrupt slow down, Booker DeWitt felt Annabeth dig her nails into his back from anger.

"You saved me," she croaked out. "Why? I could have opened up a Tear!"

"Momentum," he muttered back.

"I could have opened it up somewhere soft!" she retorted angrily, "somewhere else! I could have…I didn't need to be saved!"

"I…I'm sorry," he croaked. "It was the only way."

"The only way for what, Booker!?" she snapped back. "Why save me, if we came back to save her!? You're not making any sense!"

"I know, I just—"

"A generator needs a battery," Alternate-Booker spoke softly, his Sky-Hook apparently connecting to the rail right next to them. "And the machine that will be powered is going to be something grandiose," the man smiled as he said that. "Something so great, it will solve your problems…or, well, our problems."

"What are you talking about?" Booker muttered back to his alternate self, who seemed completely unfazed by the incoming freighter on his rail.

"Booker?" Anna whispered perplexed…she was probably surprised to see another him.

"You don't understand?" Alternate-Booker moved his head to the side. "Tears have always opened in Columbia, since the Lutece's machine went haywire. The problem was that they not only opened up, but they also brought things forth and sent things back. The question was how to keep these things away from the population, as far as possible from where they could bring damage or could show the people that the Prophet wasn't actually one, right?"

The freighter was growing incredibly closer.

"The Syphon wasn't there to absorb only Elizabeth's powers and store them: it also worked as a stabilizing agent. Before it was turned on…tears had already begun to appear. Fink found the key to making Vigors, while his brother found music. How long till they would realize said things came from a future the Prophet was talking of? There was no other choice, they had to be closed off…but how do you close off a window into another universe?"

"You kill that universe," Booker whispered.

The Freighter passed through his Alternate-Self, who like an evanescent ghost simply slipped through it without a worry. There was silence as his Alternate simply kept on going on the line…wait, weren't the lines only one-directional? To be right next to him…

"You absorb it like spilt water with a sponge, you make sure the tear gets closed, and then you destroy it. Elizabeth could open Tears…but she could also close them, could she not?"

"Wait, you're not making any sense!" he snapped back. "And…and if that were true, then why would Comstock do something like that!?"

"To make sure his future came true in every, _single_, universe." Alternate-Booker chuckled grimly, before shaking his head slowly and moving straight ahead of him, into his own line. "You see, Booker…infinity cannot be comprehended by mortals. There is a reason mathematics is stumped over its definition. You can use limits to tell whether it can be reached or not…but you can't actually reach it. There is always a limit, and that limit isn't given by the materials at hand, but by what imagination you can achieve. So unless you're thinking of a universe where we all have green skin, and universe which parodies all we're doing —green skinned— won't come to exist…but now? Now it will because I spoke of it, you're imagining it, and it can become reality."

"Wasn't it meant to come because of choices?" he hissed back. "Weren't choices the only thing important!?"

"Heads or tails," Alternate retorted. "What if instead we choose rock-paper-scissors? What if we go with a dice roll? What if we decide we just will use our fists? What if we shoot the Lutece when they come with the tally? Those are all valid choices Booker! In life nothing is prohibited, but that which you impose upon yourself!"

"You killed a child!"

"And you didn't?" Alternate retorted.

"Booker?" Anna's blue eyes looked at him wide in fright…so similar to those she had when she was young, when she was nothing more than a baby that…

"I didn't," he snarled. "I did not."

"You did," Alternate retorted.

"No, I didn't," he snapped back again. "I would never do it," he said softly. "I never did. I never have done. I never will do."

"Saying something and doing something are different, Booker," Alternate snarled as he jumped off. A lone Hoverboat was floating right next to them, the crew aboard killed and laying dead on the wooden floor. He jumped off next, letting Annabeth down.

"No! It never was a choice! I'd rather never have to choose then let Anna die!"

"Booker!" Annabeth exclaimed. "_WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO_!?"

"What?" he whispered back. He pointed his finger at his Alternate. "I'm talking to him. He's there! Right there!"

"There's no-one there, Booker."

"But he threw me towards you!"

"No! You moved on your own!"

"What?" his throat parched up, as Booker turned to look at his Alternate's smiling form.

"Where is the best place to hide a man —one who doesn't want to be found— Booker DeWitt?"

_Right in front of your eyes…or should I say behind them? Should I say within them then?_

And with a light bow, Alternate-Booker disappeared.

The grey mist slammed straight into Booker's chest, forcing him to bend down on the ground as a bout of cough splattered blood on the surface of the floor —shuddering breaths reached his ears…but they were his, weren't they?

"Booker? Booker!" he felt Anna's hands grasp his shoulders as he was shaken out of his stupor. "Please say something!"

Booker's eyes turned to Anna's face, and then to something beyond her. A rock face, a depiction carved in stone of an angel.

_Migrants used to come in from there._

_Why was it closed?_

"We have to…we have to go," he whispered. "To where it all began."

_If the Syphon was meant to hold Anna's power into check…why did she manage to open a Tear to Paris the first time?_

"Huh?"

"It's there, all of it…it was moved there," he added.

_Because the Syphon didn't work only on absorbing her powers. It worked also in doing something else._

"What is there? What's there!?"

_For Comstock to rule with its enemies defeated. _

_For Comstock to stand where others failed._

_For Comstock to stay above all the rest, and for him to avoid the Lutece's own intervention into his plans…_

"The Syphon…the machine…Comstock's going there," he murmured. "He's been leading Daisy by the nose…he can't lose."

"What are you talking about?"

_Rosalind spoke of pruning the choices he made._

_What if…what if Comstock had a machine with the similar purpose?_

_One that made all choose to worship him of their own will, one that made them all faithful and bound to his cause…but then, why Fitzroy? _

_Give an enemy to the people, and they will be bound by it._

_Like Hitler gave Germany the Jews. Comstock gave his people the Vox. He saw it, he saw what the others had done to earn their power and he copied them, all of them._

_When Elizabeth left the tower, the machine was turned off._

_The more the power left waned, the more things for Comstock went bad._

_In the end…_

_In the end he, Booker DeWitt, had been needed for a simple fact: Comstock couldn't prune his own choices without damaging himself too._

_And if he used the power of the machine…_

_He could reset the tables._

_A blank slate...to start again._

"He…the choices —there is no choice— that's the way it has to be," Booker mumbled. His right hand pressed gently against Anna's shoulder as he took a deep calming breath. "I need you to trust me," he whispered. "It's going to be a really horrible ride," he chuckled. "Really a bad one," he shook his head. "We're…"

"Booker, you're blabbering," Anna huffed as her cheeks filled with air in a sort of mock-pout. "But…fine," she deflated visibly. "Just…don't scare me like this again dad, all right?"

"You called me dad," he made a small smile as he chuckled. "It's a first."

Anna sighed and turned around, giving him the back as she moved to open the hoverboat's floating controls. Unseen by Booker was also the red flush on his daughter's cheeks. It was embarrassing to call Booker 'dad' after all… it had been an honest slip of the tongue though.

Really.

**Author's notes**

**And we're reaching the end.**

**One last chapter? Maybe an epilogue afterwards.**

**Now, there were some things in Infinite that puzzled me.**

**(as shown in this chapter)**

**Why wouldn't someone see the tears and someone else instead could? I mean, tears seem pretty visible, and if you're nearing them and hear music…**

**Then again, those with music had a red halo, while those only Booker and Anna see have a white one.**

**So I started to ponder on it.**

**Maybe there were different 'classifications' of Tears. Those visible to ALL and those visible only to Anna and Booker. (Genetics!)**

**So I actually wondered 'why didn't Fink just call on the Prophet about the Tear-business?' Well, except for he too being a fraud, it seems pretty obvious that something happened to make sure those tears only went on in specific spots and at specific times, and something else held them at bay from the general population.**

**Furthermore, the fanaticism of the Comstock's guards…**

**To that, you know, I had two options.**

**One was the fact that Comstock gave each of them a sip of a Possession Vigor to make them loyal to him. Another was that they had some sort of 'out-of their' reason to be with him. Their open-mindedness to Booker being a pilgrim as if 'nothing could go wrong with a new guy coming in' gave me a somewhat solution…**

**What if they simply didn't see what they didn't want to see? **

**What if they simply **_**couldn't**_** see what they weren't meant to see? Even when Booker's hand is covered (choice at the desk) nothing changes. (While this can be potentially considered a Bioware forgetfulness, or simply 'let's skive off the details gents!') I instead thought about it as a potential answer. All choices where Booker 'is ignored' were merely 'pruned off' the tree that is the 'choice-decision'. Instead of more branches ending in 'more endings' (Like old Bioware Bioshock 1 and two) there is only the trunk. All branches have been 'cut off' by something.**

**And that something is the machine the Lutece used to go through Tears, which used a generator of sort that was then linked to the Syphon. So if the Syphon can absorb the energy that Anna emits…then he can also absorb the 'energy' of 'wishful thinking' to open tears. Meaning he automatically 'absorbs' the universe tied to that 'bubble' or 'tear'.**

**So he's a giant sponge of 'destroy universes before they can form'.**

**That said, I just want to point out that 'if one has to choose between X and Y, and chooses X, then there is an universe where Y exists'. So if Booker chooses to give the daughter to Comstock, so exists an universe where he didn't. As there exists infinite universes, there has to be one where he saves his life and lives with his daughter happily, just as well as there is one where he kills her.**

**So 'A' Booker killed Elizabeth. Whereas it was 'this' Booker, one of those before, one of those to come, we cannot know. And since Rosalind has **_**said**_** that, but hasn't shown that…where's the proof? Booker is considered a 'constant' in some things. **

**(HE DOESN'T ROW!)**

**But in others he changes. We can thus suspect that the Lutece are taking 'Handfuls' of Bookers from various spots in other universes.**

**But then, this again is strange: if there is an universe where he doesn't row, there HAS to be one where he does row, right? **

**Infinity requests such a thing to exist.**

**IF it doesn't, then something happened to it.**

**Something that stomps even the Lutece's powers of 'across universes!' can't defeat. **

**(The past Bookers were all sent into different 'starts of Comstock universe' but with the same constants...infinite! only maybe the hat of a guard was different, since that's something the Lutece can do)**

**Which then again asks the question: Why don't the LUTECE smother Comstock in the crib? Why does it have to be ANNA?**

**(OR Annas) **

**Because of Power. (Unlimited Power! Said Palpatine)**

**Their machine, whatever it was, had power enough to scatter them across dimensions…but not enough to give them the chance to 'defeat' it again. So when Comstock got his hands on it, they were forced to use different methods. Sending the 'hero' on a quest so that he would gather someone 'more powerful' to change things. Someone like Anna who had held her energies absorbed by the Syphon…and who had them then destroyed.**

**So that's the point with Time-Travelling: you need exponentially more power than with Universe Travelling. Anna didn't have it in the beginning, but she acquires it by reabsorbing energies.**

**Booker didn't have it in the beginning…**

**But he acquires it with every little nugget of power that is bestowed upon him.**

**(Vigors, his 'other' selves, contact with Alternate Anna) **

**And so we come to the inevitable conclusion…**

**What is Booker going to do in the end?**

**We shall see.**

**We shall see.**

**PS: technically speaking, we can be fairly certain there are at least seven Bookers who died, because of the different Annas in the final cutscene. They all probably stood in a 'stasis' area in wait for one they could effectively 'smother in the crib'.**

**...speak of filial love.**


	20. The End of All Choices

Sometimes

Chapter Twenty

The Hoverboat's engines barely reached the edges of Monument Island, before spluttering and dying out just as they landed roughly.

"Booker, catch!" Anna exclaimed as she threw at him a machine-gun —probably picked up from the corpses of the Vox.

"Thanks," he mouthed back grabbing it tightly.

He could see way up, near the statue's head, Comstock's Zeppelin having landed already. Closer to the monument's feet was instead…Songbird.

Waiting like a Cerberus, the giant bulk of machine and leather was holding itself barely —its ears had been smashed by something, maybe gunfire? The figure was probably waiting for something; its patched wings torn had made it impossible for Songbird to lift off…had it broken them by its own will?

_Would you kindly._

No, it probably hadn't.

Maybe Daisy had tried to sing the right lullaby to kill it, but had failed someplace with the notes. She had gotten close, but not enough. Or there could just be any other possible explanation to why he, Booker DeWitt, was now walking closer to where Songbird was waiting.

"You want to wait here?" he whispered to his daughter.

"Not a chance Booker," the girl snorted. "The big bird scared me last time…not today; I'll just open a tear and send him to die in—"

Anna frowned, her right hand moving forward as she tried to open a Tear. One that refused to be opened, apparently. "But I thought…"

"The Syphon is probably active once more," Booker muttered. "I suppose the entire island is a massive sponge."

"Wait," her voice was now actually showing a slightly fearful edge. "Do you really want to fight him?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Anna? Aren't we already past the 'Songbird scared me but now no longer' part?"

"Well," she hesitated. "I thought I had my Tear powers back then," as she whispered that, her hands went to grab his own arm. "We could go, right?"

"Anna?"

"We don't have to go forward," she pleaded. "We can go back. Just, leave the monument! We could take the Sky-Line from here to the closest floating spot and…and go to Paris!"

"No," Booker sighed as he gently held Anna's chin. "This thing…all of this, it ends today."

"All right Booker," she muttered taking a sharp breath. "All right."

He nodded back to her, before taking another step and passing through the solid gates. The white stairs that led upwards to where the twin wood doors stood were covered in thick oil and leather straps. A Devil's Kiss grenade could easily burn through it, burn through the open wounds that Songbird had and kill him on the spot.

Yet the machinery of leather and metal gurgled and groaned as its giant claws moved to stand to a sort-of sitting positions on the stairs. Its broken mask hung loosely by thinner straps.

**Free. Me.**

Booker's breath hitched.

No.

It couldn't be.

**Kill. Me.**

That had to be wrong. It couldn't be right. There wasn't a way!

**What are you…afraid…of?**

"You can't be," his breath hitched. "You can't be."

**Someone…was needed.**

"You lied to me!" he snarled.

**I cannot…hear you.**

"Why go through all this!? Why!?"

**I think…I can understand you…**

Songbird's head dropped a few inches down still. Anna tensed by his side, but didn't move.

**A blank page, Booker…do you understand…its beauty? **Songbird's voice hitched, but he wasn't actually speaking was he?

**There is nothing…more beautiful…than possibility. A blank page, Booker…the first words you can write are a choice.**

A loud noise of mechanisms whirled from behind Songbird, as his neck snapped slightly up.

**Knowing all…is tedious… is impossible…is wrong. A blank page…cleanness…clarity. A blank page… possibility… choices… not obligations.**

"How?" he softly whispered.

**When…you tore the machine…we were scattered. We were one and all…many died…infinite screamed…more vaporized… few could survive. Fewer could understand…and only one could stay the course. Rosalind…was the same.**

Another hitch, a wheeze…and a cog somehow cranking and snapping in half from the back of the machine's right shoulder. The right arm fell on the ground, gushing out blackish oil that smelled strongly of petroleum.

**We were…castaways…on a raft in the midst of an ocean…and we couldn't row back to our coasts…because we had no lighthouse to guide us.**

**We had no-one to guide us.**

"Why lie to Rosalind then?" he asked. "Why go through all this? Why hide into…into other people, why give me their thoughts, their memories, their ideas and choices!?"

**You had to be…prepared. Between two points…there can only be one line.**

"I'm to be a lighthouse," he muttered. His eyes snapped shut for a second as a staggering thought reached the side of his brain. He could feel dribbles of blood fall as his mind worked to find the reason for why he would…why he would…

"No, I'm to be a sacrifice," he mouthed slowly. "One of me alone can understand infinity…and it's not me. It's another me…I just need…to last enough…" his tone grew enraged, "_so that you fuckers can find a way home_!"

**You understand…** Songbird clattered, as its mask came slightly looser. **That…that is why…I told...her…not…but she…**

"You threw me into this!" he snapped. "I'm not going to—"

_Mercy._

Songbird's hand came up, close to Booker as if pleading to be…absorbed, spared?

"N-No!" he snarled. "I am not…"

_Help the little sisters…_

"_YOU_…_NO_," he coughed as he felt his hands spasm and clench. "I will not…I _WON'T_…"

_A slave should let a man make the choices for him._

"_I. AM. NOT. A. SLAVE_!" he roared as he threw the Devil's Kiss grenade against the machinery that was Songbird. Fire burned quickly through the petroleum, through the leather and the flesh that belonged to the man within. Within seconds, Songbird burned to a crisp among agonizing screeches and horrendous screams…and he gasped for air as he swept his forehead from the sweat.

"Booker?" Anna asked worriedly next to him.

"I'm fine," he spat out as he watched the last dying shudders of Songbird in front of him. "I'm fine." The beast's right claw opened up in a spasm, to reveal…

Was that a Voxophone?

Booker snorted as he carefully stepped forward, his machine-gun aimed at the corpse of Songbird…of Robert…still not trusting the thing from moving again even as charred as it was.

He pushed a button on it, hearing the tell-tale click as the machinery began to speak with the voice of Robert Lutece.

_I suppose…you defied me. I should have expected this from the moment Rosalind spoke. I knew there was the risk, the gamble…but did you know that King Lear had its ending changed by the people? Not the writer, but the people. Not the author, but the people. And when the people did change the ending then…I wonder…which became true and which became false? Is the word of the writer worth more than that of the reader? Or is the opposite true?_

_DeWitt…if you are hearing this…then it wasn't heads that came up on the flipped coin, but Tails._

_Tell Rosalind she lost._

"What was that about?" Anna asked taking a careful step forward, eying the Voxophone. "What did Rosalind lose?"

"A bet, I suppose," Booker remarked as he warily stepped beyond the clawed hand and moved towards the doors. "Let's just…go."

In silence, Anna nodded and walked right behind him. They stepped inside the entrance Hall of Monument Island quietly, as the girl took deep calming breaths. He could hear her skittering on the edge of a frightful run…and with good reason. He supposed that without him, she wouldn't have even taken a step inside.

In the deafening silence the girl's breath hitched repeatedly, the more things they saw the more her skin seemed to turn green with disgust.

"We never passed by here," she pointed out as they walked past the bloody sheets with the words 'menarche' written on top of it. "And I'm glad we didn't," she added with a choked sound. "So that's where my Teddy went, I suppose."

"It's all going to be over soon," he whispered as they reached the Syphon's room. There was a loud sound, a cackling noise as if it was sputtering to work.

The blue curtains that once covered the sides of the hall with their clothes were now moved to the side, revealing three downwards stairways that probably led beneath the monument itself, to where the Syphon 'uncharged' itself.

These were outright uncharted waters…and he didn't know which of the three directions was the right one.

And there was no-one but him, who had to make a choice.

"Oh," Anna whispered. "It's tingling," she said, holding her necklace with her right hand. "I think they went down there," she muttered, pointing at the stairs to her right.

He sighed. "Should we really trust that thing?"

"Why not?"

"The Lutece gave something similar to the other Anna…"

"They didn't give me this," she said back. "Another Anna did," she added. "I think I can trust myself, right?"

"I hope so," Booker sighed. "Stay close," he added as an afterthought as he began to descend the stairs. "And don't wander off too far!"

"Yes, Booker," Anna's drawled reply was a far better one than the scared tone she had been using before. It was a notable improvement.

The stairs led down to a badly lit corridor that seemed to end in another pair of doors —these ones of metal, closed by a lock.

Anna merely hummed, as she carefully grasped her hairpin to open it up. She stilled halfway through her motion, her hands travelling to her neck where she unclasped her pendant, pushing it on the lock's keyhole. There was a clack, soon followed by the door swinging open.

"How did they know?" Booker murmured, gently pushing Anna behind him as he gave one last look to the pendant. He pressed his right shoulder against the door, opening it up. It was in that moment, that he realized just why there had been three stairways.

He could understand chance.

He could understand the slight possibility of things happening because some sort of casualty had brought them forth. He couldn't, however, understand how it had become possible for Comstock to stand —smiling as his usual self— in the same room with the murderous Daisy pointing her gun at him.

The circular room with white walls and a sort of sterile smell of alcohol was eerie. It reminded him of the hospital camp where he had awakened days after the battle of Wounded Knee, with Slate laughing at him from the bed next to him. Right beneath the Syphon, there was a chair holding what looked like the dried husk of a small figure. The child had been strapped down to it, and her entire body was a mass of burnt skin and exploded pustules.

He pushed the memory of the dead man away, just like the sight of the horrible corpse, from his mind. Both Comstock and Daisy seemed to have noticed his arrival. Comstock was alone, just like Daisy…albeit she was holding a gun to Anna's temple.

"Comstock," Daisy snarled. "Whatever this weapon does, I want you to tell me how it works!"

"Of course," Comstock acknowledged. "The Syphon is quite the bit of technology, it can—"

"I asked how it works, Comstock! Not what it does! Is it off now?"

"It can never be turned off, Daisy," Comstock smiled. "_Would you kindly_ drop the gun?"

"Huh? Have you gone insane you—"

And then the corpse on the chair _screamed_.

Booker's blood froze in his veins as the realization that whatever dried husk of a child was on that chair…the child was still alive. The Syphon flared as its arcs of greyish energy flew in the air, surrounding them all with the familiar sight of a Tear enlarging itself.

The next instant, Daisy's hand dropped the gun.

"Tell me what I want to know, Comstock!" the dark-skinned woman snapped. "Or I'll snap the girl's neck!"

Booker blinked…the woman had no idea what had just happened, did she?

"There are so many choices," Comstock chuckled. "So many things have happened, Daisy…so many things will happen, but in the end… they all lead back to the same shore."

Weren't those…

Why were those words familiar?

"What are you talking about you—"

"Would you kindly let the girl go?"

Another high pitched scream from the child strapped to the machine, as the skin on the body seemed to bloat and break itself repeatedly through the process.

"A stabilizing factor is always required," Comstock spoke calmly. "Mind over matter, rather than mind over body."

Another Tear bubbled up, enlarging and surrounding them all… and Alternate-Anna was free to go as Daisy stopped holding her a prisoner.

"No-one tells me where to go," Comstock said next with his small smile. "You, on the other hand…a man chooses…but a slave? A slave obeys."

"What the—"

And Daisy's eyes widened as Comstock's hand went to his own broadside, firing a shot that struck straight in the chest the Vox Populi leader. Daisy fell on the ground, her breath hitching as she drew her lasts breaths.

"Power over the people," Zachary spoke smoothly. "Power over the weak-minded fools who cannot understand!" he laughed heartily as he spun around, his gun pointed at Booker. "Do you understand, Booker DeWitt? It took me a while, a moment…a heartbeat, but I understood in the end. Isn't that all that matters?"

"What is there to understand?" Booker snarled back his own arms holding the machinegun ready and primed. "You can't control me!"

"No? But then again tell me, DeWitt, how much do you think it would take, to get the might of Columbia in this very room?" and with a mock-bow, Comstock spoke again. "Only three words…_Would_. _You_. _Kindly_."

And with those words the dried husk of the trapped prisoner screamed again in unholy pain. The Tear expanded into a bubble, which widened with unprecedented speed to display…an entire mob of Comstock's guards. During that instant, however, Alternate Anna had managed to dash right behind him together with her other self.

So in a certain way…he had the girl.

The problem would be getting out of there alive, as somehow the Tear had also closed all the doors.

"Anna?" he whispered. "Can you open a Tear for cover!?"

"No," they both spoke at the same moment. "There's something…"

"Booker!" Anna exclaimed, "Give us some time! I've got something I need to test!"

Return to Sender worked just in time to hold the barrage of incoming gunshots and bullets against their position, as Booker screamed before sending the mass of fused metal back at its senders. His machinegun rattled the first bursts of fire, as the guards screamed back as quite a few fell to the shrapnel of the exploding ammunition-ball.

One charged forward with his baton raised, and to that Booker answered with the twirling blades of his own Sky-Hook —slashing the neck's carotid— and spraying with blood the pristine white floor.

The body was used as an impromptu shield from a shotgun wielder moving too close, before he answered back with a Bucking Bronco wave.

The moment they were all in the air…

He threw them against the Syphon itself. With loud screams of agony, the arcs of energy of the Syphon itself burned through them and tore them apart to skeletons…

But a few survived and fell on the ground.

The two who did held the colors of the Vox rather than those of the Guards.

"For Booker DeWitt!" they screamed just as the husked corpse shrieked again. The moment the Tear came once more…they were utterly vaporized.

"You think you can win, Booker?" Comstock yelled from behind a sphere of Return to Sender. The energy for it was probably given by the Syphon. "Destroy the Syphon, and you will never win! Leave it, and this will continue forever!"

"What are you talking about!?"

The new Tear brought forth two Firemen, who flung their Devil's Kiss grenades with precision, before charging at him. He moved to Undertow, washing the two away as the grenades exploded in mid-air while in contact with the water wave.

The next usage of the same Vigor brought the Firemen closer, just in time for him to throw them at the Syphon. Like before, the two screamed as the machine itself began to break.

There was a louder screech than before and in that moment Anna —or the Alternate Anna— yelled.

"We've got it Booker! We're overcharging the thing!"

He gave just a quick peek behind him, in time to see one of the two Annas hold her right hand forward —arcs of the grey energy flying out of her and hitting the Syphon dead on— while the other had both of hers clasped around her other hand.

A loud wail of pain…

And three Handy-Men arrived followed by five Crows.

"Oh god," he murmured. "Oh…Oh hell…"

He was literally surrounded as one of the Handy-Man's giants slammed into him, sending him to fly and smash against the wall. He yelled in pain as he slid off the cracks in the wall and fell on the ground, his machine-gun dropping with a small clatter on the ground as Comstock's men neared the two girls.

"No…" he whispered, his right hand moving up as he slowly crawled a step forward. "No…"

_Call upon us, Booker._

The Syphon's broken sides arched with energy, as one of the rays began to travel towards him.

"You are going to die, DeWitt! Like I have been told!" Zachary laughed at his sight. "Fool of you to try and defy me! Even if I were to die, another would take my place! Another…just like you!"

_You don't have to fight alone._

And so he breathed slowly, before roaring and standing back up with both hands moving towards the ray of grey energies —weren't those quantum molecules to begin with?— and then, with a flash of outright pain…

Jack Ryan's wrench hit the open palm of his hand, as a swarm of bees flew from his hands and towards the Crows.

Andrew Ryan's hand popped up a reddish sphere, which he threw with grace in the air as it crashed against one of the Handy-Men.

Delta roared as it pounced with its drill on another of the Handy-Men.

Alternate Booker brought both hands up, mixing the electricity of both Electro Bolt and Shock Jockey as he flung thunders like a Zeus.

Comstock's hands burned a brighter green of Possession than ever, as a wave of said energy formed a sort of leash on the last of the Handy-Men.

And Booker DeWitt wobbled back on his feet, breathing in deeply as he narrowed his eyes on the screaming Crows —who were trying their hardest to avoid the bees— before whispering.

"_I walk my own path now_."

The hypnotized Handy-Men smashed one against the other, while Delta's own drill tore apart the ceramic hands of the third one while repeatedly slamming bolts of electricity into him.

Jack had charged inwards, his hand now sporting icy gales of wind that seemed to freeze whoever ended up beneath it long enough. Surprisingly, Andrew was apt in using his golf cue as a club, because he was slightly behind his 'son' in smashing down the now ice sculptures.

"It is a refreshing change!" Andrew exclaimed. "It also seems quite therapeutic!"

"In the name of the almighty God!" Alternate-Comstock roared. "Be _gone_!" and with that, his hypnotized Handy-Man smashed down to a pulp one of the Crows —too slow to fly elsewhere.

"No! No! This wasn't supposed to happen!" Comstock snarled. "You had to destroy the Syphon! You had to grasp its powers! You had to realize! Why aren't you doing what I'm asking you to!?" the Return to Sender field disappeared around Comstock as the machine's broken bits cracked and splintered while the quantum particles began to float around in a twirling of spheres.

Tears after Tears sprouted around the white hall, all showing the same scene and yet a different one.

"For all that you gathered, I harvested!" Comstock snarled. "For all that you saved, I condemned! For all the Heads, I had the Tails!"

The hands of Comstock morphed to a thick oozing grey color, one that only Atlas time before time had held. One from overexposure to Adam, one that Zachary Hale Comstock hadn't possessed the first time around.

"_I DID AS I WAS TOLD_!" he screamed slamming both fists on the ground as cracks appeared on the floor and fiery flames emerged like a scene depicted from hell itself. A tremor shook the entire room, as the arches of energy flew erratically. One of them slammed into Delta, tearing him apart from his very armor and destroying him to thin particles.

Another of the arches spun in a circular way, slicing in half the body of one of the Handy-Men. The halfs morphed one into that of a Fireman, the other into that of a Crow's vest. The screams however…they were the same on both sides as they fell on the ground with a spluttering and the blood gushing out.

"You think I'll let you get away with this!?" Comstock snarled again as he charged. His speed, enhanced further by the wind of the Charge Vigor brought him straight against Alternate-Booker and Alternate-Comstock. His hands grasped at their heads, squashing them like melons as he roared and they both screamed. "What you can make, I can destroy!"

A wave of water of Undertow poured out of Comstock's hands then, but Jack was faster as ice froze the water into a wall.

Another zap of energy, and ice became a wall of metal. A wall of metal that somehow was torn apart by deep claw-like cuts so familiar with Songbird's hands.

"You think you're so special," Comstock snapped as he pushed aside the torn walls and passed through.

Booker's pistol fired, but the bullets just ricocheted against the shields of the Prophet.

"You think you've got the answer to all your problems," the man's face was a horrendous mixture of melted features, some of Jack, some of a scarred face that belonged to Delta, some of his own…

"But guess what?" another step, and a massive wave of Bucking Bronco intertwined with Telekinesis slammed both Andrew and Jack Ryan against the Syphon, tearing them apart.

"You can't always win."

The Prophet was in front of him in a flash, grasping with both of his hands Booker's neck.

"BOOKER!" he could hear Anna's screams behind him, "DAD!" Alternate-Anna's too.

And in that moment, Booker heard also other screams. He heard those of the rotten body still on the chair, and he breathed slowly. His heart was beating erratically, but he was calm even as air was starting to leave his lungs, even as the man known as Comstock was choking his very life out of his body.

_Leave the thinking to us. Fight. Maim. Kill._

He lifted his right hand, the one still holding his pistol. The Prophet laughed as his skin so close reflected its bullet-proof properties. Yet Booker…he just fired a shot from his Broadside.

The bullet flew past the Prophet, who merely laughed at that display. "You missed."

"Depends on who I was aiming for," Booker choked out, as the screams in the room suddenly stopped.

Comstock's eyes widened to near comical proportions.

"Fool! Without a stabilizer they'll—"

_And then the world exploded._

It was white.

The start of the world was white.

It was like watching the door-stars, only…it was white.

_Thank you, Mr. Crow._

A voice whispered, low and childish.

"Eleanor?" he murmured, looking around in the infinite extension of white around him.

No voice came back, but as he stood there in that infinite white palette…

"Ahem," a light cough attracted his attention, forcing him to turn around with his pistol still cocked and ready to fire.

Rosalind Lutece stood there, her face somber and her eyes sad.

"It wasn't supposed to go like this," she admitted quietly. "It was supposed to become a self-sustaining loop. A mere test on loops theory shouldn't have become this."

"That was what Comstock was blabbering about?"

"Yes," she nodded. "He was supposed to be you with memories of having a chance at making things right, again. The girl on the chair, a replacement for Anna. The Syphon in this universe was unstable, far more than that in the other universes. I suppose Robert knew this was a possibility, when he made the gamble…stupid man: he should have known that when you play with probability and infinity, chances become certainty."

Booker blinked.

"Where are we?" he asked, still hesitant in lowering his gun.

"I was supposed to say 'crossroads'," Rosalind sighed. "But we aren't —not really…not any longer," she looked around into the vast white surrounding them.

"You were supposed to accept your last self, the seventh. Songbird would have tied yourself to the ideal of the protector, the guardian…and then you would have ended up finding out that the girl on the chair was to be Eleanor. Your Delta side would have recognized the name, and the rest would have worked out by itself as a chain, forcing you to try and save her by sacrificing yourself. In taking the girl's place, you would have ended up at a crossroad: let the girl die of the radiations, but live afterwards with your daughter or try and go back in time to save her? Even destroying the Syphon would have given you a choice…but you never got to hear the girl's name. You never got to hear her whimpers because Anna kept on feeding energy to the Syphon, keeping her in a nigh screaming phase."

Rosalind clenched her fists. "That too…how you managed to find her, after all the things…how she managed to escape…" the woman shook her head. "It doesn't matter I suppose."

"Why did you say it was a loop?" he whispered harshly. "What did Comstock…"

"Just as you returned back in time, you would find yourself aged and alone. Alone in a world where no Columbia existed…alone in a world where written into your brains were the wonders of Comstock's Columbia…and the need to find Eleanor again to 'protect' her. You would rebuild Columbia, but then…then you would start meeting the other side of the coin," she breathed in slowly. "As I realized something was wrong, I began giving Comstock insight with the other sides of what you had chosen. The loop was meant to settle finally just as you ended up battling your past self in the Syphon room. Always expecting to emerge victorious, while in truth…"

"In truth I didn't," Booker finished. "Now…give me a good reason why I shouldn't fire at you."

"You only have one bullet left," she answered back. "There is nothing else in here but us two. We have ended up falling through the cracks, beyond them or maybe even _before_ them. You have one bullet; there is only me and you." She shrugged. "Choose wisely."

And to that, to those damn words, Booker's hand began to tremble. He could fire at the woman, he could fire at himself or he could fire in the air…

"Why do I have to choose now, of all times!?" he snapped back closing the distance between the two of them. "Why did it have to be me!?"

"Why not?" Rosalind replied. "Should it have been Anna, like last time? She at least used those energies in a creative way…always a man, a lighthouse and a city…" there was a light smile on the woman's face. "Interesting choice…incorrect in the bigger scope, but still…"

"And what would be the correct choice?"

"There is. Always." Rosalind shrugged as he turned around, giving her back to him.

"Why a man and not a woman? Why a human and not a dog? Why a lighthouse and not an airport? Why a city and not a hamlet, a cottage, a house? There is always…and that is all."

Rosalind crossed her arms over her chest, as she moved her head to the side. "Albeit there might be a way I suppose," she admitted. "One to get us all out of here, that is," she added softly. "Not a terrible long way either."

Booker didn't speak, but he holstered his pistol to his belt. "And that would be?"

"Give or take," Rosalind shrugged. "Understand, Booker: it isn't quantum particles that create infinite universes, but the wishful thinking of humanity by itself. 'If only I hadn't left my house! I wouldn't have been mugged!' or 'I don't want to die, why did I enroll!?' are just a few of the situations…quantum particles are just a matter that is the same in every, single, universe. It is the basic brick of reality, Booker: it cannot be changed, no matter the amount of wishful thinking we try and make of it…at least, because there are infinite amount of universes around who deaden the will of the few who wish for it to change."

She chuckled. "Do you know that until observed, we cannot determine if a quantum particle is active or not? And while we do not observe it, what is it of the two? Active, inactive, both…or neither?"

"You want to create an alternate universe?" he muttered shaking his head. "Have you gone mad?"

"No," she sighed. "There is no 'alternate' to nothingness. There is nothing in here, Mr. DeWitt, except for us two. You are the cause, and I was lucky enough to be 'around'…except before there were quite a bit more of things to look at." Her eyes glazed over, "Unfortunately, we are now the only two sentient beings who can actually change things. So I have to ponder if you understand what I'm asking of you."

"No," he shrugged. "You're still going to tell me, I suppose."

"While we cannot stop universes from being created…we can stop them from interacting with one another. Understand, Booker: there will always be a universe where you smother in the crib your daughter," here he clenched his fists. "Just like there will always be one where you don't. You cannot defy the laws of the university: every head must have a tails, every yes a no…it's the law. Probably the only law that can ever exist. 'All exists' is the first, 'There is always a possible different ending' is the second."

"So Comstock would still exist…but he wouldn't have the Tears," Booker muttered. "He wouldn't have the chance to use them, to find the Vigors, to build Columbia…"

"Oh no, Columbia was built by man…but it did not fall because of the Tears," Rosalind admitted. "Our machine kept the best possible ending available for Comstock, which is why only a 'potential' Comstock could fight him."

"I understand…" he whispered, before closing his eyes and making a slight grin. He chuckled then, as he shook his head firmly. "I _understand_. What of us, however?"

She shrugged. "We'll cease to exist and our memories will be wiped out. We cannot be here, 'beyond' time, without the chance of the Quantum Particles interacting with one another throughout the universes."

Booker swallowed anxiously.

"Did I really kill Anna?"

"One Booker did," Rosalind acknowledged.

"Did _I_ kill Anna?" he gritted his teeth as he asked again.

"You know I can lie to you, right?" she replied calmly, without batting an eye-lid.

"Tell me the truth for god's sakes!" he yelled, grabbing her by the shoulders. "_DID I KILL ANNA_!?"

"No, you didn't," she admitted slowly. "I lied back there. I just…I was simply angry at you."

"But another me did," he whispered. "Right?"

"Yes."

Silence.

Thick, heavy and filled with tension, it slowly came down between the two of them. "You've got to be kidding me…" he snorted. "If…If I do this, then what makes me better than Comstock?"

"You'd live in this white eternity?" Rosalind remarked. "I would rather take a bullet, so that —in the event of an afterlife— I might meet Robert again."

"No, come on! You're the smart one! Can't you just think of another solution!?"

"You could…" Rosalind blinked. "Well, that would be quite the ironic statement."

"What?"

"Mr. Booker…how old is the universe?" Rosalind asked him.

"Huh? A lot of years?"

"Millions. Yet no-one has an idea of what the Big-Bang was. By the same token, what if the theory of big-bang was just a fat lie? What if the universe didn't have a lifespan of millions but just…minutes? Hours? Days?"

"What exactly are you…" Booker blinked. "You're an evil woman."

"I know," Rosalind nodded sagely. "And extremely selfish."

"Wishful thinking, right?"

"Wishful thinking."

And just like that, next to both of them, in the milky white eternity…something snapped as one of the most fundamental bricks in the universe..._changed_.

_**Epilogue**_

"And that will be all," Rosalind Lutece, theoretical physicist, spoke to the assembled classroom. The door of the faculty was swung open a moment later, as her brother —theoretical physicist him too— stepped in with his usual smile.

"Rosalind! I finished my class before you!"

"Robert!" Rosalind chided her brother. "It is not a race ours!"

"Excuse me, professor Lutece?" a timid female voice asked, making both brother and sister —twins as they were— turn.

"Yes?" they both asked in synchronicity.

Blue eyes blinked back at the two, as the girl hesitantly asked. "You asked to meet my father, to discuss about my thesis, right?" her voice was meek. "He said he'd like to talk over it at dinner…if you'd like, this Saturday…your brother is invited too!" she blurted out the last part quickly, giving a shy glance at both of them like a fearful rabbit.

"All right Miss DeWitt," Rosalind acquiesced. "I have my schedule free on that particular day."

"I also add my own thanks for graciously extending the invitation to myself," Robert nodded again.

The girl bolted out a second later, as the two Lutece simply looked at her retreating back before turning to one another and grinning slightly.

"She's such a dearie, isn't she?"

"Quick mind too," Rosalind admitted. "I think she has an older sister."

"Rosalind!" Robert exclaimed. "That is improper!"

"Dear brother of mine," Rosalind sighed. "You will die a horrible death if you keep up refusing to meet with the proper ladies I present you."

"When you will meet one of the proper men I present you, I will do the same."

"Enough," Rosalind chided Robert. "Let us discuss about the quantum entanglement field known as…"

Meanwhile the young Miss DeWitt was already sprinting out of the wide halls of the university, heading off towards the tramcars a few streets away. She'd have to walk a few more minutes after a thirty-minute ride, but afterwards she'd be just outside her father's office.

She breathed in as she steadied herself. It wasn't her fault her heart was beating that hard! Her father always had that sort of gruff attitude that was somewhat scary —the 'criminal' glare he gave to some people was really top stuff— but she should know that in the end he was just a big daddy and nothing more.

Now to convince him to let go of the shotgun whenever a boy tried to ask permission to court her, that would a nice improvement.

She knocked on the door of the 'Private Eye, Private Protection and Private Affairs DeWitt & Slate' before slowly opening it and stepping through. There were a few desks, quite an amount of papers, a couple of mugs of coffee and hot-dogs bought from the stall vendor below, and a few wraps of chocolate loosely placed around. At one of the desks, a portly man wearing a toupee and with an eye-patch smiled at her entering.

"Ah! If it isn't the mousey girl!" Slate's laughter echoed through the room, as her father's associate bellowed with the finesse of a port-sailor a belch —the rest of what probably was an hot-dog still there on his carton plate.

"Hey uncle Slate," she replied with a forced grin. "Is dad in?"

"He is!" Cornelius nodded. "Go on, go and knock on the door: you'll make his day even if you wake him up."

Cornelius pointed to the door within the office —once her father had told her he had kept her crib in that room, before she too had outgrown it.

So she opened the door with a timid knock, stepping inside to look at the dingy mattress settled in a corner. On its soft surface was sleeping the sleep of workers Booker DeWitt, his right arm over his face. On the back of his hand was a bad burn mark, the result of an accident while trying to warm a milk bottle or so he had told.

"Hey dad?" she shyly said moving closer, and getting down on her knees next to him. "Dad?"

"Uh?" blearily, Booker DeWitt opened his eyes. "Eleanor?"

"Yes!" she nodded. "Anyway dad, the professor's fine for this Saturday. Her brother's coming too, all right? I mean, they were both there talking and I couldn't just—"

"All right," Booker mumbled as he slowly stood up scratching his eyelids. "Everything's fine," he patted her on the head then, before standing up.

"I'm not a kid anymore!" she pouted as her father's hand ruffled her hair. "Is Anna going to be home this Saturday?"

"I hope so: she spends too much time in Paris for her own good," Booker shook his head. "But what can I say? She's my little artist and you're my little physics prodigy…you have to have taken everything from your mother I suppose."

"Except the good looks?" she pointed out with a slight smile.

"Of course those are only Booker-prerogative," he replied before stepping out of the 'nap-room'. "Hey Slate! You free this Saturday? Anna's supposed to be back. You can bring your missus too!"

"Oh an old glory meeting huh? You sure your wife won't be angry at our reminiscing?"

"She'll be all over Eleanor and her professor: we'll get the professor's brother and have a drink between men."

"Dad!" Eleanor squeaked again. "Please don't embarrass me in front of the professor's family, _please_!"

"You don't have a crush on your professor's brother, right?" Booker's eyes narrowed. "He's quite older than you: actually, I'd better clean old faithful. Never know when you'll have to use it, what with Anna coming back home and all…we'll have a nice chat with your professor's brother."

"_DAD_!" red as a ripe tomato, Eleanor crossed her arms over her chest.

"Kidding, just kidding."

"Dinner time at seven?"

"Of course it is, come over at six though…we can get started on cleaning the weapons."

"I hate you dad," Eleanor mumbled to herself, as she began to walk outside.

Booker smiled before grabbing his hat and his jacket. "I'll bring the little woman home Cornelius, see you later!"

"Later, Booker!"

As it was, they arrived home just in time to receive a verbal lashing from Mary DeWitt, who was of course appalled at the fact they had taken their time to find and eat some chocolate muffins along the way…no matter the very well made point that the muffins were on sales, that they had brought her a few back, and that she actually was giving hesitant bites to them herself.

Booker was just about to turn around and leave to return to the office, when the doorbell chimed and he went to open the door.

Standing there, with her bright blue eyes, Anna DeWitt was holding her travel bags and sporting one of those most gracious dresses that were 'in fashion' in Paris.

She smiled at him, and he smiled back as they engulfed each other into a tight hug.

"I'm home, father."

"Welcome back."

_**The End.**_

_**Author's notes**_

**And thus it is done.**

**As always, my muse went for her own road in the middle of the story, and of course I had to follow her as a kicked puppy. (Who hates their muses? I do! I do!)**

**Eleanor reappeared, see?**

**I could have probably 'prolonged' the story with a view on Comstock's (Booker's) descent into Comstock-persona, but then again, why keep going when the story's end just pleaded to be written?**


End file.
